Key Indexing Resources (some have partial full text content included)
Omni Academic Search Tool This search engine searches for books and audio-visual materials that are also listed in the library's catalogue, as well as journal articles (chiefly those that are available electronically), theses and dissertations, newspaper coverage from some recent and a selection of archival newspapers, and digitized content such as out-of-copyright books and journals that are available from sources such as The Internet Archive and The Hathi Trust.
Basic and Advanced Search Omni Video
If you want to try a more focused search restricted to databases emphasizing English Literature, try the following resources:
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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The MLA International Bibliography, produced by the Modern Languages Association of America, is the fundamental research tool for the humanities. The database is an index of international scholarly materials on modern language, literature, linguistics, and folklore. The citations are from over 4,000 journals and series, monographs, working papers and conference proceedings. - Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
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Find up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on more than 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world. - Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database (CBCA) This link opens in a new window
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This database, with 600 full text titles, is the most comprehensive Canadian reference collection available today. Accessible to readers and researchers at every level, CBCA Complete features a highly-respected, diversified mix of publications, including scholarly journals, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines. - CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals Index This link opens in a new window
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CPI.Q is Gale’s award-winning full-text resource specifically designed to provide instant access to the most requested Canadian reference materials. Covering a wide range of disciplines, CPI.Q is the perfect one-stop resource for researchers in need of information from Canadian-focused journals, magazines, newspapers and reference sources.
CPI.Q features a wealth of Canadian and international periodicals, Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s weekly magazine and Canadian News Facts as well as comprehensive encyclopedic reference material. - C19: Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window
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C19 Index is a bibliographic database for 19th century research, providing integrated access to the most important finding aids for books, periodicals, official publications, newspapers and archives. Users can query collections simultaneously, or can conduct more detailed research using collection specific search screens.
Canadian Book Trade Bibliography, 1935-1985 = Bibliographie sur le commerce du livre au Canada, 1935-1985
This resource indexes about 300 print resources including Quill & Quire.
- Canadian Periodical Index.Call Number: AI3 .C242Publication Date: 1920-1987Some years collected: 1920-37, 1938-47, 1948-59. For coverage after 1987, use CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals Index online.
Key Databases
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR has created a full text digital archive of core scholarly journals with complete back runs of many titles. As part of JSTOR’s agreement with publishers, current issues (usually the last 3 – 5 years) are not digitized by JSTOR and may be obtained elsewhere. The Toronto Metropolitan University Library has access to the entire content of JSTOR’s archival journal collections. - Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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Project Muse provides online access to the full text of over 250 quality journal titles from 40 scholarly publishers in the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, mathematics and many others.
Toronto Metropolitan now has access to the following 2022 collections: African Studies, Gender Studies, History, Language and Linguistics, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Music, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Philosophy and Religion, Political Science and Policy Studies, Public Health and Health Policy, Russian and East European Studies - ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new window
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ProQuest Research Library provides one-stop access to thousands of full-text periodicals from one of the broadest, most inclusive general reference databases ProQuest has to offer. Search from a highly-respected, diversified mix of scholarly journals, professional and trade publications, and magazines covering over 150 subjects and topics. - Black Short Fiction and Folklore This link opens in a new window
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Black Short Fiction and Folklore brings together pages and works of short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora from the earliest times to the present. The materials have been compiled from early literary magazines, archives, and the personal collections of the authors. Some 30 percent of the collection is fugitive or ephemeral, or has never been published before. - Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
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Black Studies Center brings together essential historical and current material for researching the past, present and future of African Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable, component databases, which include: - British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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This database provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture. - Caribbean Literature This link opens in a new window
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More than a million and a half Africans, along with many Indians and South Asians, were brought to the Caribbean between the 15th and 19th centuries. Today, their descendants are active in literature and the arts, producing literature with strong and direct ties to traditional African expressions. This literary connection, combined with the tales of survival, exile, resistance, endurance, and emigration to other parts of the Americas, makes for a body of work that is essential for the study of the Caribbean and the Black Diaspora. - Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new window
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This database brings together journals printed between 1693 and 1799 illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. They offer effective coverage of the important issues of the period, and are invaluable to the study of all aspects of the eighteenth century, including crime, sport, advertising, the theatre; fashion; politics, revolution; agriculture; social issues and society life. - Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Bearing witness to what many scholars consider the three most significant events in world history – The American Revolution, The French Revolution and The Industrial Revolution – this resource features: Full-text search capabilities; Canonical titles of the period as well as contemporary works that analyze and debate those titles; Works by both well-known and lesser-known authors. Toronto Metropolitan has both original ECCO and ECCO 2. - Latino Literature This link opens in a new window
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Latino Literature contains approximately 380 plays and 67,500 pages of prose and poetry by Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican and other Latin writers working in the United States. Although the collection includes materials from the nineteenth century, the vast majority of the materials are from the Chicano Renaissance to the present.
They are presented in their original language, English or Spanish. In cases where authors produced more different language versions of their work, both are included. To illustrate and to give additional information about the works, resources such as playbills and performance material, poetry readings and book presentation flyers, book covers, pictures, etc. are included. - Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Nineteenth Century Collections Online is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, with archives releasing incrementally beginning in spring 2012. - Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginning to the Present This link opens in a new window
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Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginning to the Present is a comprehensive electronic database relating to women’s writing in the British Isles. It provides entries on over 1,000 authors’ lives and writing careers, contextual material, timelines, sets of internal links, and bibliographies. Orlando also includes related material on literary, social and historical events, male writers and non-British women writers. - Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
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An online archive containing over 700 journals of digitized, full-image articles, Periodicals Archive Online (formerly PCI Full Text) offers access to international, scholarly literature in the arts, humanities and social sciences disciplines from 1802 to 1995. Toronto Metropolitan has access to Collection 1 to 9. For titles from Collection 1 to 5, we have coverage up to 2000. - Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism This link opens in a new window
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The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism (REM) is the largest and most comprehensive resource available for all those involved in the study of modernism. REM brings together a wealth of interdisciplinary content about the Modernist period, and is the ideal starting point for any research in modernism. The content is fully cross-referenced, allowing for greater discoverability between fields, and covers eight key subject areas: Literature, Architecture, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, Film, and Intellectual Currents. Researchers can browse by subject, movement, or place in order to discover connections between key topics and fields. - Shakespeare Survey This link opens in a new window
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Shakespeare Survey is a series of Shakespeare studies and production. This collection makes all issues of the Survey available online for the first time. Accessible through a fully searchable interface, users can browse by author, essay and volume, search by play, theme and topic and bookmark their results. - Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period. Among the research fields served by this material are gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.
Early English Book Online (EEBO)
Early English Books Online (EEBO) The aim of the Early English Books Online Project is to capture the earliest extant edition of every English-language work published during the first two centuries of printing in England, and converting this material into fully-searchable texts. Over 25,000 texts from the first phase of EEBO-TCP have been made freely available as open data in the public domain from January 2015.)
Drama Collections including Film Scripts
- American Film Scripts Online This link opens in a new window
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American Film Scripts Online contains 1,009 scripts by 1,062 writers together with detailed, fielded information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts. In addition, the database includes facsimile images for more than 500 of these screenplays. - Asian American Drama This link opens in a new window
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This edition of Asian American Drama contains 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. - Black Drama This link opens in a new window
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Black Drama contains approximately 1200 plays by 200+ playwrights, together with detailed information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. - North American Indian Drama This link opens in a new window
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North American Indian Drama contains 256 plays by 49 playwrights. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others. - North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new window
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North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. - Playwrights Canada (Drama Online) This link opens in a new window
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The Playwrights Canada collection offers plays from notable and award-winning authors. Works by First Nations playwrights, diverse playwrights, plays with large casts, monologues, classic and contemporary Canadian plays, including French plays by Canadian authors in English translation.
Other Drama Online collections. - Twentieth Century North American Drama This link opens in a new window
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Twentieth Century North American Drama contains 830+ plays by 124 playwrights, together with detailed information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. More than 100 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.
Many additional plays, film scripts, and dvds of theatrical productions can be found by searching Omni.
Resources focusing on Theatrical Studies
- Digital Theatre+ This link opens in a new window
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Digital Theatre+ is the world’s leading educational platform for the performing arts. DT+ collaborates with world-class theatre companies, industry associations, practitioners, teachers, examination boards and scholars to:
• Capture and curate live performance in stunning quality
• Bring an unprecedented range of insights from behind the scenes
• Commission bespoke educational resources to support study at every level
DT+ is constantly evolving and growing, with more filmed productions and interviews as well as superb written content being added every month.
Note: Digital+ requires the newest version of Chrome to work. Please update (URL: https://www.google.ca/intl/en_ca/chrome/update/) your browser if it is not working.
- North American Theatre Online This link opens in a new window
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North American Theatre Online is a comprehensive reference work covering all aspects of the Canadian and American Theatre. It includes some 40,000 pages of major reference materials, together with records to approximately 30,000 plays, 57,000 people, 5,400 theatres, 22,000 productions, and 2,500 production companies. Each year we'll add more than 20,000 new records. The collection also includes approximately 10,500 images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other resources. - Theatre in Video This link opens in a new window
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Theatre in Video contains more than 250 definitive performances of the world‘s leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video - more than 500 hours in all, representing hundreds of leading playwrights, actors and directors. - International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text This link opens in a new window
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The definitive research tool for the study of theatre and the performing arts. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text was initiated by the American Society for Theatre Research, and since 1984, the Theatre Research Data Center (TRDC) at Brooklyn College has published 14 volumes of the IBTD. - Oxford Bibliographies Online - Cinema and Media Studies This link opens in a new window
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Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies has recruited many of the finest scholars in cinema and media studies to chart a path through the information thicket and toward a carefully organized, thoroughly peer-reviewed account of the most important books, articles, and Web sites. With frequent updates, Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies is an essential resource for students, faculty, and researchers.
See also the TMU Library guide for Theatre
Google Scholar
What is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly and peer reviewed literature. From one search box, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites
As of March 2015, Wikipedia reported that approximately 160 million documents were indexed by Google Scholar. Coverage of topics in Google Scholar varies from discipline to discipline as many journal publishers do not allow Google to index their articles; in many cases searching subject specific databases will result in a better choice of articles.
If you are searching with Google Scholar on-campus you will automatically be given access to articles for which TMU has a subscription. If you are using Google Scholar off-campus, you will need to configure Google Scholar to get access to those articles.
Configuring Google Scholar for Off-campus Use
For Google Scholar to know that you are affiliated with TMU (and that you should have access to TMU resources), you will need to configure your Google Scholar Preferences as follows:
- Go to scholar.google.ca and click on the Settings icon
- Choose Library Links from the left-hand menu
- Enter TMU in the search box
- Click in the box beside Toronto Metropolitan University - Check TMU Libraries
- Scroll down and click on the Save Preferences button
Once configured, you will see Check TMU Libraries links when you search Google Scholar and you will have access to all TMU's subscription resources.
Google Scholar Chrome Extension
Chrome users can install the Google Scholar Button to make finding articles and formating citations easy. You can use it to:
- Find full text of articles
- Re-do your web search on Google Scholar
- Format references in APA, MLA or Chicago style and copy them into your paper.
To take full advantage of the Google Scholar Button when off-campus, remember to configure your Google Scholar settings so that it knows you are from TMU and provides access to TMU subscribed resources.
Creative Commons License
This guide has been created by the Toronto Metropolitan University Library and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License unless otherwise marked.
