Book, Poem, or Short Story Criticism and Author Biography Using Literature Resource Center
January 04, 2005

by Staff, New Dorp Branch Library
  1. Go to www.nypl.org/databases.
  2. Scroll down the page to Databases By Title. Either select Literature Resource Center from the alphabetical listing, or under Find Databases by Title enter Literature Resource Center, and select Literature Resource Center at the next screen.
  3. If you're accessing from home, a dialogue box will ask you for the barcode number form your library card. Enter it to proceed to the database.
  4. From the first screen that appears you can enter the name of your author for biographies and general criticism.
  5. If you want to see criticism for a particular title only, you can select Advanced from the search menu.
  6. Enter the author's name in one of the search boxes: author name is the default search for each box.
  7. In a second box enter the title you need: from the pull down menu select one of the Title options.
    • Exact Match will be the most precise
    • If you don't find your title Use All Words or Any Words.
    • If you still don't find your title, broaden your search by using fewer terms, or just search under the author's name. Using more words to search will give you fewer results, not more.
  8. What appears on the next screen will depend on what information is available in the database for the terms you used for your search. Generally you will be able to select tabs for at least Biography and Literary Criticism. Select the tab for the kind of information you would like.
  9. The list of results will consist of links to full text articles or chapters that have appeared in books or literary journals. These are print sources, the content of which has been made available in this on-line database. Full bibliographic information for the original source will appear at the top of each article.
  10. Since these are the on-line equivalent of print sources, they should not be considered as internet sources. If you would like to supplement your search with information from websites, select the tab labeled Additional Resources: if the database has links to any authoritative websites they will be listed there. You will find more websites if you do not limit your search to a particular title.