Literature E-Reference Ratings

Alexander Street Literature. Alexander St. www.alexanderstreet.com/products/wlit.htm
This vast file fills an important niche for the literature of place, race, and gender. It cross-searches 14 different collections (e.g., Asian American Drama, Latino Literature, Irish Women Poets), containing 250,000 pages of poetry, short fiction, novels, and 5000 full-text plays and film scripts, with new content added regularly. Users can browse the entire database or a specific collection. 

Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File. www.fofweb.com/Lit
Famed scholar Harold Bloom gives his handy books an even handier online database, with a good-looking interface that is easy to search and browse. Entries include biographies, overviews and synopses, analyses and criticism, and topics and themes. Highlights include an in-browser dictionary tool, Bloom's Canon, and almost 170 streaming videos on a variety of topics. The information is valuable but self-contained, with no links to other sources. 

Books & Authors. Gale Cengage. bna.galegroup.com/bna
This readers' advisory tool provides fresh, informative content for all genres and age levels. Its 2.0 functionality lets users sign up for “My Reading Room” to save books, authors, lists, and past searches; rate and review books and see what others have rated and reviewed; and save and share titles easily via services like del.icio.us and Digg. The Read Alike Wizard and Who, What, Where, When tools provide quick and easy access to recommended reads. 

Books in Print. Bowker. www.booksinprint.com/bip
This robust database provides two different interface options, depending on intended use: BIP Professional, with downloadable MARC records and vendor stock availability, and Patron BIP, with quick search, less book industry jargon, and browsing based on genre, awards, and best sellers lists. Both Patron and Professional give the option to save lists of materials and offer OPAC integration. 

Columbia Granger's World of Poetry. Columbia Univ. www.columbiagrangers.org
This is the resource to use for locating poems in collections and anthologies in a snap, a good portion of it in full text. Users can search by subject, poet, or words in the text as well as by schools and movements, poetic forms, era, language, and nationality. They can also find ample biographies, commentaries, and a large selection of audio clips. Another perk: comparing any two poems side by side. 

Fiction Connection. Bowker. www.fictionconnection.com
Enter a title or author for a book you like, and get recommendations on the fly. Browse this great resource by subject term, time period, location, or setting and search by title or author for similar works. Copious results mean you will have to sift through and make some refinements. The interface is easy to use, but the relevance-sorted recommendations sometimes seem overly broad. Reviews and other content are pulled from Bowker's Books in Print (above). [Also available: Non-Fiction Connection and Complete Connection, combining Fiction and Non-Fiction.] 

Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. search.ebscohost.com
This all-encompassing file lets you search and browse “all” or “most studied” authors and literary works, featuring 100,000 articles of criticism, 130,000 biographies, and over 30,000 plot summaries. The user-friendly front page features a topical Author in Focus and a Reference Shelf with time line, encyclopedia, dictionary, and literary glossary. Also included are links to full-text classics contained in Project Gutenberg. Create RSS alerts for significant searches or request to be notified when new journal issues are added. 

Literature Online. ProQuest. www.proquest.com
Touted as “the world's largest cross-searchable database of literature and criticism,” this resource contains material and criticism for over 17,000 authors (228 journals are available in full text). It also provides durable URLs and reciprocal linking to Oxford Reference Online, JSTOR, EEBO, and Project MUSE. The uncluttered design provides multiple access points; subscribers can even brand it with their library logo. Also noteworthy are 841 “Poets on Screen” (nonstreaming) video clips. 

Literature Resource Center. Gale Cengage. www.gale.cengage.com/LitRC
Gale Cengage's main literature offering delves deep into a broad range of content, containing criticism, biographies (130,000), primary sources, and multimedia. Multimedia are especially rich compared with other products, comprising web sites, images, sales stats, and audio such as NPR transcripts and links to audio segments available online. Search and navigation are straightforward, and overall design is unremarkably utilitarian. Users can export citations into various text formats or third-party software tools. 

LitFinder. Gale Cengage. www.gale.cengage.com/LitFinder
As the name implies, LitFinder helps users find 135,000 stories, poems, essays, plays, and speeches in anthologies. Some are available in full text, and most of those are out of copyright. Search by genre or subject as well as title or author; browse to see what's available alphabetically, and then refine the results. In the Academic/Public edition, the unfortunately named “Kids Korner” provides easy access to subject terms found in children's poetry. A great complement to Gale's Literature Resource Center (above). 

NoveList. EBSCO. web.ebscohost.com/novelist
Great for all age levels, NoveList takes the best qualities of print-based readers' advisory (RA) tools and gives them an intuitive online search interface. It contains book discussion guides and book talks, as well as Curricular Connections, Feature Articles, Grab and Go Book Lists, Picture Book Extenders, Recommended Reads, and What We're Reading from contributors. 

Reader's Advisor Online. Greenwood. rainfo.lu.com
Reader's Advisor Online has a bit of an edge over more algorithm-based online RA tools, but the occasionally paltry results could leave readers wanting more. Users can save titles to a new list as they browse or print out a “Quick List” for readalikes, similar themes, and authors to consult later. It also features a frequently updated blog. Search results are precise and focused.