VIRGO, the U.Va. Library’s primary search tool, contains catalog records for books, print journals, DVDs, maps, and digitized materials, as well as links to online articles from our rich array of subscription journals. A few hints:
The MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) indexes the broadest range of resources about literature in all languages, including over 4,000 journals as well as books and dissertations. It is not a full-text resource, meaning that you can only search the description of an article, rather than the text of the article. To get the full text of an article, click on “Find article @ UVa Libraries”, or look up the journal title in VIRGO.
JSTOR contains back issues (usually 3-5 years old or older) of significant scholarly journals in many subjects, including language and literature. JSTOR is not as comprehensive as MLAIB, but the full-text search will do a better job of picking up matches for specific themes or subjects. Articles are immediately available as PDFs.
Project Muse provides full-text searching of recent articles from major scholarly journals, including roughly 120 journals about literature. Like JSTOR, Project Muse is not as comprehensive as the MLAIB, but offers the advantages of full-text searching and instant access to PDFs.
The Oxford English Dictionary is considered the most authoritative resource about the English language. It's useful not just for definitions and etymology, but for quotations demonstrating the usage of words and phrases over time.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is an authoritative source for researching the lives of British persons from the earliest times to the end of the 20th century.
Literature Resource Center (LRC) includes full text articles from the Dictionary of Literary Biography -- a terrific source for author biographies -- as well as journal articles, reference works, and reviews.
The following books are available online, as well as in print:
The following books are available in print in the Alderman stacks:
The following books are on reserve in Clemons Library: