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Databases: Humanities: English

ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature) VCU
Coverage: 1920 - present
The Modern Humanities Research Association's index of critical scholarship on English-language literature. Citations and selected full text.
ACLS Humanities E-Book VCU
Coverage: Ancient History - Present
Humanities E-Book (HEB) -- offered by the American Council of Learned Socieites (ACLS) -- is a digital collection of significant scholarship in the Humanities.
African American Biographical Database VCU
Coverage: 1790 - 1950
Large collection of biographies with full text access to the primary source material.
African-American Poetry Database VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Coverage: 1760 - 1900
Searchable collection of over 2,500 poems.
American History in Video VCU
Coverage: 1492 - present
American History in Video provides the largest and richest collection of video available online for the study of American history, with 2,000 hours and more than 5,000 titles.
American Poetry Database VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
40,356 poems from 1,288 works by 209 poets.
American State Papers, 1789-1838 VCU
Coverage: 1789-1838
Legislative and executive documents, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817.
Archive Finder VCU
Coverage: Pre-historic to present
Current directory of thousands of repositories and collections of primary source materials housed in the United States and United Kingdom.
Archive of Americana VCU
Coverage: 1639 - 1980
Combined interface for searching Early American Imprints I & II (1639-1819), American State Papers (1789-1838), and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980).
Biography and Genealogy Master Index VCU
Indexes more than 15 million biographical sketches from reference books covering individuals, living and deceased, from every field and all areas of the world.
Black Studies Center VCU
Coverage: 25,000 B.C. - present
Black Studies Center is a digital core collection of primary and secondary sources in arts, history, literature, politics, and religion that record and illuminate the Black experience, from ancient Africa through modern times.
Blackbird: An Online Journal of Literature and the Arts
Coverage: 2001 - present
An innovative online literary and arts journal, Blackbird features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and the arts -- as well as interviews with writers and artists. Sponsored by the VCU Department of English and New Virginia Review, Inc.
Book Review Index Online Plus VCU
Coverage: 1965 - present
Indexes reviews from scholarly and popular journals primarily in the fields of general fiction and non-fiction, the humanities, and the social sciences. Includes citations and full text reviews.
Contemporary Authors VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Biobibliographical information on modern authors. Part of Literature Resource Center. Can be searched separately or with other LRC resources.
Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford DNB) VCU
Browsable, searchable, illustrated collection of more than 50,000 biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past. Living persons are excluded.
Dissertations and Theses Full Text (ProQuest) VCU
Coverage: 1637 - present
Full text for most dissertations from 1997 to the present. Includes full text for some earlier dissertations, along with over 2.4 million dissertations and theses citations from around the world.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 VCU
Coverage: 1639-1800
Virtually all books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints of 17th- and 18th-century America. Covers thousands of subjects in full-text.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 VCU
Coverage: 1801-1819
Books, pamphlets, broadsides, and other imprints of early 19th-century America. Covers thousands of subjects in full-text.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online VCU
Coverage: 1700 - 1800
With over 136,000 titles and 26 million pages, ECCO contains every published text of historical significance from Great Britain and Colonial America during the 18th Century.
English Poetry Database VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Coverage: 600 - 1900
4,450 works by 1,350 poets from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the nineteenth century.
English Verse Drama Database VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Coverage: 1300 - 1900
Contains more than 1,500 works by 450 named authors, plus approximately 230 anonymous works.
Essay and General Literature Index VCU Mobile-enabled
Coverage: 1985 - present
Citations to essays and articles contained in collections of essays and miscellaneous works. Focuses on the humanities and social sciences, with subject coverage ranging from economics and history to criticism of literary works, drama, and film.
Humanities International Complete VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org) Mobile-enabled
Coverage: Ancient - Present
Providing full text of hundreds of journal articles, books and other published resources from around the world, Humanities International Complete (HIC) includes all data from the Humanities International Index.
International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP) VCU
Coverage: 1998 - present
Full abstracting and indexing for about 85 scholarly and popular current periodicals from 1998 forward. Full-text is provided for 24 of these journals. Also included in the database are retrospective citations from about 40 journals.
International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) VCU
Leading bibliography of the European Middle Ages (c. 400-1500). Covers articles in journals and miscellany volumes worldwide. Click on "Enter Databases" and then on "Go".
LexisNexis Academic VCU
Full-text legal, business and news information.
Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Coverage: 1973 - present
Covers all aspects of the study of language and the various fields of linguistics.
Literary Index
Master index to every literary series produced by the Gale Group including Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and the literature criticism series.
Literature Online (LION) VCU
Text-rich resource that includes ABELL, full-text humanities journals, full-text English and American literature, and reference resources.
Literature Resource Center VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Literature reference database. Includes Contemporary Authors Online, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select (v. 95 forward), and Dictionary of Literary Biography Online, and other similar materials.
Luminarium
Coverage: 1350 - 1660
Luminarium, featuring extensive background information on authors and selected full texts of their works, transforms the study of early English literature into a multimedia experience. Links to critical essays, art works, and music sound clips.
Middle English Compendium VCU
Three major Middle English resources: Middle English Dictionary; HyperBibliography (materials cited in the Dictionary); and Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (Middle English electronic texts).
MLA International Bibliography VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Coverage: 1926 - present
The Modern Language Association of America's index of critical scholarship on literature, language, linguistics and folklore. Citations only.
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Music Online VCU
Coverage: Ancient World - present
Music Online provides the most comprehensive database in streaming audio, video, reference, and scores on the web. Integrated searching by ensemble, genre, historical events and more provides in-depth context for music history.
New York Times VCU
Coverage: 1851 - 2006
More than a newspaper for an American city, the New York Times is an international record of national and world news, as well as personal stories of how events affect individuals.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online VCU
Coverage: 1789 - 1914
Digital archive of primary source collections from the "long" 19th century. Includes monographs, newspapers, manuscripts, diaries, letters, maps, statistics and more. Offers annotation and tagging tools.
Oral History Online VCU
Index to English language oral histories publicly available on the Web and/or held by repositories and archives around the world. Includes interview level records if possible, and links to multi-media if available.
Oxford English Dictionary VCU Sponsored by VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia (www.vivalib.org)
Searchable, browsable full-text of the 22-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Use Find Word for definitions. Use Advanced Search for etymological searches.
Pennsylvania Gazette VCU
Coverage: 1728 - 1800
Full-text database of articles from the Philadelphia newspaper considered to be The New York Times of the 18th century. Includes other important writings of the period, e.g., Common Sense and The Federalist Papers.
Philosopher's Index VCU Mobile-enabled
Coverage: 1940-present
Indexes scholarly research in all major fields of philosophy. Covers journals, books, and book reviews.
Play Index VCU Mobile-enabled
Coverage: 1949 - present
Citations to over 31,000 plays published from 1949 to the present.
Poets On Screen VCU
Nearly 800 clips of poets reading their own or other poets' works. Requires RealPlayer or Windows MediaPlayer. (Part of Literature Online)
Religion and Philosophy Collection VCU Mobile-enabled
Coverage: Ancient - present
Nearly 300 full text journals covering topics central to the study of philosophy and world religions, including denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language and history of philosophy.
Short Story Index VCU Mobile-enabled
Coverage: 1984 - present
Index of more than 76,500 stories from over 4,000 collections.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive VCU
Coverage: 1500 - 1865
Presents the history of slavery alongside efforts and actions to end it, drawing from thousands of documents, some very rare, in a comprehensive, conceptual, and global way.
Theatre in Video VCU
Over 250 of the world's most important plays. Includes over 100 documentaries about productions and interviews with authors, directors, and actors.
Twentieth Century North American Drama VCU
Coverage: 20th century
Full-text of 2,000 plays from the United States and Canada. Includes playbills, posters, and other ephemera.
Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels VCU
Coverage: 1950 - present
Documents the entire spectrum of underground and independent North American and European comics and graphic novels. Includes over 75,000 pages of original material from the 1950s to today, along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism.
VCU Menorah Review
Coverage: 2003 - present
The VCU Menorah Review, established in 1984, explores a diverse range of issues related to Jewish life, culture, and history. The review features essays on recent scholarship in Judaic studies.
Voice of the Shuttle
Coverage: Pre-history - present
Voice of the Shuttle, established in 1994, provides a structured and briefly annotated guide to online resources for a wide range of academic disciplines in the humanities -- and points toward the transformation of those disciplines as they interact
Women Writers Online VCU
Searchable textbase of approximately 200 works published between 1525-1830. A work in progress; coverage will extend from 1400-1850. Includes Renaissance Women Online, a subset of approximately 100 works.

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  • VCU Available on OR off-campus with EZProxy
  • Libraries Available in either Library
  • Cabell Available in Cabell Library
  • Tompkins-McCaw Available in Tompkins-McCaw Library
  • VIVA Libraries Sponsored by VIVA, The Virtual Library of Virginia
  • Mobile-enabled Mobile-enabled