Off-campus access

- full text available
- Open Access

Contact course instructor: Dr. Michael Branch

Please direct questions to: Betty Glass

Updated 23 January 2006

ENGL 741: Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing before Walden

• Finding Articles and Other Information Sources (Beginning your Research)
• Electronic Journals for Nature Writing  
• Library Catalog (Books and other library materials)
• Full-Text Literary Databases
• Full-Text Electronic Books
• Selected Web Sites
• Selected Main Library Resources

The Best Resources for Finding Articles & Other Information

• America History & Life
  • Index of journal articles, dissertations and book reviews on all aspects of North American history (United States and Canada). 1964- present.
• APS - American Periodicals Series (1740-1900)
  • Growing collection of magazines & journals published in late colonial Anglo-America and the U.S., valuable for research in History, Literature, Journalism, and other disciplines. Microform edition also available.
• Bibliography of Native North Americans 
  • Indexes books, articles, essays, conference papers, and U.S. and Canadian government publications about: Aleuts; Eskimos or Inuit of Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska, and eastern Siberia; and other native peoples of Alaska, Canada, the U. S., and Mexico. 16th Century - present.
• Biography and Genealogy Master Index
  • Index to more than 10 million biographical sketches of individuals from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and "Who's Who" publications.
• Ethnic NewsWatch
  • Articles, editorials, reviews, etc. from newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press. Search in English or Spanish. 1990- present.
• GenderWatch
  • Full text collection of articles covering interdisciplinary women's studies and gender topics throughout history. (search hint: specify a century as a search term: "sixteenth century")
• Index to Early American Periodicals (1700-1935)
  • References to articles from U.S. periodicals from 1700-1935. Full articles can be found in the American Periodicals Microfilm Collection in the Reference Department.(microfilm S1, S1a, S1b)
• MLA Bibliography
  • Over one million citations to books, scholarly journals, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies from languages, literatures, linguistics and folklore. 1926 - present.
• Nation Digital Archive
  • Search issues of The Nation, America's oldest weekly magazine, from 1865-2004. Browse by date, author, or subject.
• 19th Century Masterfile
  • Series I: Index for 19th century USA and British periodicals. Series III: Indices for the New York Times Index, 1863-1905 (full-text available from ProQuest); New York Daily Tribune Index, 1875-1906; Palmer's Index to the Times (London), 1880-1890; Index to the Oregon Spectator, 1846-1854. 

Additional Useful Resources for Finding Articles & Other Information

• Academic Search Premier  
  • Provides full text for over 1,250 journals covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, and much more. 1984 - present.
• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (1920- present)
  • Over 860,000 searchable records of monographs, scholarly articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, and collections of essays and dissertations.
• Arts and Humanities Search
  • A citation index covering more than 8,000 titles from the world's leading arts and humanities journals. Includes the ability to search particular authors' works to find out who is citing them. 1980 to present.
• Birds of North America Online
  • Detailed scientific information for each of the 716 species of birds nesting in the USA and Canada. Includes extensive references and an expanding collection of media resources for each species. Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
• Dissertation Abstracts
  • ProQuest's Digital Dissertations allows access to the text of digitized dissertations from UNR at no cost. Dissertations from other institutions can be purchased and downloaded. 1861 - present.
• Essay and General Literature Index
  • Indexes essays and articles in collections published in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. Particularly useful for humanities and social sciences literature. 1985- present.
• The Nineteenth Century
  • Index to UNR Libraries' Nineteenth Century microfiche collection (C23), published between 1801-1900. See our user guide to the collection.
• WorldCat
  • A catalog of library materials in all formats from libraries all over the United States and the world. Contains more than 40 million items.
     

Full-Text Literary Databases

• African American Poetry (1750-1900)
  • Nearly 3,000 poems written by African-American poets. Searchable by title, first line, poet, gender, and time period.
• American Poetry (1600-1900)
  • Over 40,000 poems by more than 200 poets from the Colonial Period to the early twentieth century. Searchable by title, first line, poet, gender, and time period.
• Book Review Index Online Plus
  • Over 5 million book review citations from magazines and scholarly journals, with links to full-text for over 630,000 reviews.
• Dolley Madison Digital Edition
  • Dolley Payne Madison was the most important First Lady of the nineteenth century. This is the first complete edition of her known correspondence. Browse letters by time period. Search by text, names, dates, topics, or places. Select Contents for a list of letters sorted by date, author, or recipient. 1788 to June 1836.
• Early American Fiction (1789-1850)
  • Full texts of first editions of early American novels and short stories written before 1850 by authors of significance during their lifetimes.
• LION-Literature Online
  • A searchable library of English and American literature, poetry, Shakespeare, the Bible, and literary reference sources.
• Literature Resource Center (Gale)
  • Comprehensive literary database for biographical and critical coverage of major authors, including fiction, drama, and poetry throughout history. Drawn from Contemporary Authors & Dictionary of Literary Biography and many other literary reference sources.
• North American Women's Letters and Diaries
  • Search or browse writings and biographies of over 1,500 women, representing various age groups, life stages, ethnicities, and geographic regions. Includes published and previously unpublished materials, from colonial times to 1950.

Full-Text Electronic Books

• ACLS Humanities E-Book
• Columbia Literary History of the United States
• Into the Wilderness Dream: Exploration Narratives of the American West, 1500-1805 (netLibrary)
• Making of America (antebellum through Reconstruction)
• Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
• netLibrary (interdisciplinary e-book collection)
• Unbiased Editing in a Diverse Society (netLibrary)
   

Selected Web Sites

• ASLE Bibliographies
• Henry David Thoreau
• Nature Writing for Readers and Writers
• Nature Writing from the Northern Tier
• Nature Writing Genre (a la Google)
• Nature Writing Journal
• Romantic Circles
• Romantic Natural History

Selected Main Library Resources

• Reference Microform Collections
• Bibliography Resources
• Selected Reference Books
• Non-Reference Books
   

Main Reference Microform Collections

Consult "Indexes to Microform Collections" in the Main Reference Department in Getchell Library. Please ask for assistance at the Reference Desk.
American Periodicals(1741-1900)	Microfilm S1, S1a, S1b
The Eighteenth Century	Microfilm S269 (Use the "keyword" search in library catalog: "eighteenth century microfilm" + a specific topic)
History of Women	Microfilm C24
The John Muir Papers	Microfilm M1008 Microfiche M 169
The Nineteenth Century Collection  (use its online index)	Microfiche C23
Utah & the Mormons	Microfilm C6
Sabin's Dictionary of Books - America	Microfiche C14
Western Americana	Microfilm C15
Women's Diaries by USA Region	Microfilm C19,C28,C29

Selected Bibliography Resources (Main Ref or Lower Level 3)

American Bibliography (1639-1820)	REF Z 1215 E92
American Catalogue	Z 1215 A5 (1876-1910)
Bibliographic Index	Z 1002 B595 (1937-2004)
Eighteenth Century Bibliographies	Z 2013 C67
Ethnographic Bibliography of N. America	REF Z 1209 M8 1975
17th-Century American Poetry: A Reference Guide	Z 1227 S3

Selected Reference Books

Atlas of Holy Places & Sacred Sites	REF BL 580 .W55 1996
Atlas of the North American Indian	REF E 77 .W24 2000
Clowns & Tricksters	REF GR 524 .C48 1998
Dictionary of Literary Symbols	REF PN 56 .S9 F47 1999
Dictionary of Native American Mythology	REF E 98 .R3 G46 1992
Encyclopedia of Religion (M. Eliade)	REF BL 31 .E46 1987
Explorers & Discoverers of the World	REF G 200 .E88 1993
Legend & Lore of the Americas before 1492	REF E 61 .A72 1993
Mythology of All Races	REF BL 25 M8 1964 (13 vols.)
Travel Legend and Lore	REF G 151 .F75 1998
Who Was Who in World Exploration	REF G 200 .W24 1992

Selected Non-Reference Resources

The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel	PR 851 .P74 2000
Atlas of American Frontiers (Lower Level 2 "Oversized" Shelf)	OVERSIZED E 179.5 .R53 1993
Bibliographies, Their Aims and Methods	Z 1001 .K86 1984
The Book Encompassed: Studies in 20th Century Bibliography	Z 1001.3 .B66 1998
Book Reviewing: A Guide to Writing Book Reviews for Newspapers, Magazines, Radio, and Television	PN 98 .B7 B6
Editing Documents and Texts: an Annotated Bibliography	PN 162 .L83 1990
Editing Historical Documents: A Handbook of Practice	PN 162 .S747 1997
Editing the Text: Essays ... Tekst/texte/text-conference, Ghent, Belgium 1995	P 47 .E35 1998
A Guide to Information Sources for the Preparation, Editing & Production of Documents	Z 5165 .A5 1989
An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual Studies	Z 1001 .W58 1999
Making the Modern Reader: Cultural Mediation in Early Modern Literary Anthologies	PR 441 .B38 1996
On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography	Z 1001 .H33 2000
The Politics of Editing	PQ 6039 .P65 1992
Publish, Don't Perish: The Scholar's Guide to Academic Writing and Publishing	Z 286 .S37 M7 1992
Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition	PE 1405 .U6 P83 1997
Textual Scholarship: An Introduction	Z 1001 .G7 1994
Twentieth-Century Bibliography and Textual Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography	Z 1002 .B28 2000
Writing and Publishing for Academic Authors	Z 286 .S37 W74 1992