French Language & Literature

Scope: This is a guide to selected print and electronic reference sources in French Language and Literature available in the UM Libraries and, also, over the Internet. Note that for the most part, electronic resources cited are available only to UM faculty, staff, and students. For remote access see the guide Remote Access. For more information, see a reference librarian, or contact the subject area specialist -- Kelsey Corlett-Rivera -- at kcr1@umd.edu or call (301)405-9116.

Books and Nonprint Materials

Library Catalogs

Catalog
To locate books and nonprint materials held in the 7 libraries on campus, search the UM Libraries online catalog . Use the "Multi-Campus Search" capability to cover the collections of the USMAI library system.

Consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings for the proper terms to use in your search such as French language -- Dictionaries; French literature -- 18th century.
For further information see the guide Using Library of Congress Subject Headings

Library of Congress Online Catalog

Aladin - The Washington Research Libraries Consortium Catalog
The shared electronic library catalog of American University, The Catholic University of America, Gallaudet University, George Mason University, The George Washington University, Marymount University, Trinity College, and the University of the District of Columbia.

George
The Georgetown University Lauinger Library and Blommer Science Library catalog.

Johns Hopkins University Libraries Catalog

Libweb
Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE's meta-index to hundreds of library online catalogs and library web servers in the United States and overseas.

BNF -- Bibliothèque nationale française

Gallica "Le lecteur accède aujourd'hui à une bibliothèque multimédia dont les ressources documentaires s'étendent du Moyen Age au début du XXe siècle." Search Gallica for full-text resources such as dictionaries, language, linguistics, and full texts online.

The European Library Search the catalogs of European national libraries.

Ministère de la culture -- information about French language and orthography

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Publishers' Catalogs

Many publishers' catalogs may be searched on the Internet. The Publisher's Catalog Home Page [http://www.lights.com/publisher/index.html] which is maintained by Peter Scott of Northern Lights Internet Solutions LTD in Saskatoon, Canada, provides links to the home pages of many publishers, both domestic and foreign. The AAUP Combined Online Catalog/Bookstore [http://www.aaupnet.org/] is maintained by the Association of American University Presses and provides access to books and journals published by numerous university presses. This site offers a variety of search options including subject, title/subtitle, keyword and main author's last name. One can also search a specific university press's catalog.

ALAPAGE / Planète Livre -- "La plus grande librairie virtuelle tous les livres et tous les disques disponibles sur le marché français, soit 400 000 références"

Aux Amateurs de Livres International
Materials from France and French speaking countries. McKeldin's French book approval plan provider.

Information Today/LiteraryMarketplace.com maintains links to publishers' websites all over the world. Requires registration for free searches.

For further information on bookstores, book dealers and/or publishers of French language books consult French Studies WESSWEB.

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Union Catalogs

Connect to Research Port from the UM Libraries home page and use Worldcat and the CRL Catalog below to identify materials held in hundreds of libraries in the United States and other countries. Use the FIND IT link to locate resources. Materials not available at the UM Libraries can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.

WorldCat

OCLC's catalog of books, serial publications, media, visual materials, musical scores, and archival materials in libraries worldwide. Includes material descriptions and holdings for OCLC member libraries. Time span: prior to 1501 - present.

Center for Research Libraries

CRL is a consortium of North American academic and independent research libraries that acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through Interlibrary Loan. Coverage: CRL holds over four million newspapers, journals, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching. Holdings include such diverse materials as 800,000 doctoral dissertations (including those of Albert Einstein, Dag Hammarskjold and other Nobel laureates). Emphasis is on materials produced outside the United States, and the Center has special strength in publications and archives from many developing nations. These holdings are available for use by students, scholars and other researchers affiliated with CRL member institutions. Time span: All, although majority of materials emphasize early modern and modern periods. Search CRL's collections by title (i.e. French Books 1601-1700; French Books before 1601 -- or by subject -- French Literature -- 18th century -- Criticism) for microforms, books, dissertations, etc. These can be requested on interlibrary loan. Treat CRL's collections as you would a branch library's.

The Center for Research Libraries is also home to Global Resources Network and CIFNAL -- Collaborative Initiative for French & North American Libraries with many useful links to French sites and collections.

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Internet Meta-sites in French Language & Literature

ARTFL

The American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language is a cooperative project established in 1981 by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the University of Chicago. Coverage: 2000 texts, from classic works of French literature to non-fiction prose and technical writing: novels, poetry, theater, journalism, essays, correspondence, treatises. Subjects: literary criticism, biology, history, economics, and philosophy. A Provençal database includes texts in original languages. Time span: 13th-20th cent.; selection of 17th cent. texts; some medieval and Renaissance. Early editions of Dictionnaire de L'Academie française; Diderot's Encyclopèdie; and a facsimile of Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1740 ed.). Other features include French verb conjugation, the French Bible, and morphological analysis.

WESSWEB

WESSWEB is produced by the Western European Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. WESSWEB is a comprehensive gateway with links to resources for European Studies , including France and Francophone countries.

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Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Handbooks

These sources are useful for identifying authors and their works, literary movements, and other such items. See ARTFL above for dictionaries. Or search Catalog using subject headings such as FRENCH LANGUAGE -- DICTIONARIES or FRENCH LANGUAGE -- ENCYCLOPEDIAS.

Le Grand Robert is available on CD-ROM. Request at the Reference desk on the first floor of McKeldin. Numerous other general reference sources such as atlases, biographical and language dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, quotation books, and phone books can be located through the Internet Public Library's Ready Reference Collection.

Orthonet -- Le site ORTHONET a été créé et est géré par le Conseil international de la Langue française (Paris). http://www.cilf.org/ - Courriel: cilf@cilf.org

See also Orthographe recommandée

Literature Resource Center

Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors from

every age and literary discipline,including French and Francophone.

Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

Essays defining literary terms and explaining literary theories, periods, movements. Biographical information about writers, literary theorists and cultural critics. Coverage:Literature, philosophy, literary and cultural theory and criticism. Time span: From Plato and Aristotle to the present.

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Dissertations

Digital Dissertations 1861-

Access through Research Port. This database is the authoritative source for information about doctoral dissertations and master's theses. The database represents the work of authors from over 1,000 graduate schools and universities. Full text is available from 1997 to the present. Coverage: It offers access to more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America. The database also covers thousands of dissertations and theses from around the globe. Time span: 1861 to present.

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Electronic Discussion Lists and LISTSERVS

Electronic discussion lists, also known as LISTSERVS, enable one to communicate with large groups of people who share similar interests.

biblio-fr@cru.fr

"La liste de diffusion biblio-fr regroupe bibliothécaires et documentalistes francophones, et toute personne intéressée par la diffusion électronique de l'information documentaire. biblio-fr existe depuis 1993, et permet des échanges dans un groupe de plus d'un millier d'abonnés. La langue de travail de cette liste est le français. biblio-fr se fixe comme objectif d'assurer la présence sur le réseau informatique mondial d'un regard francophone, notamment dans les domaines touchant la circulation de l'information."

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Histories and Literary Criticism

For historical overviews and literary criticism of the literatures of French speaking countries, search CatalogWeb using the following subject headings:

FRENCH LITERATURE -- HISTORY & CRITICISM
FRENCH LITERATURE -- BIBLIOGRAPHY
FRENCH PHILOLOGY -- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Search also under the names of specific authors and their works, or centuries followed by -- CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION.

See also the guides to electronic resources, such as the Guide to English and American Literature and the Guide to Spanish and Portuguese Literatures for further suggestions for research in literature.

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Abstracts, Indexes and Bibliographies

The following sources list books, essays, magazine and journal articles, and dissertations on literary topics.

Arts & Humanities Search
An index, to articles published in over 1,100 arts and humanities journals and selected articles from related science and social science journals. Also useful for finding book, film, music and performance reviews as well as creative writing published in journals. Provides cited reference searching.

Humanities International Complete

Humanities International Complete (EBSCO) is an essential collection for comprehensive coverage of the humanities with full text content.

MLA Bibliography

The most important database for research in literature, it indexes journals, books, essay collections, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies published worldwide in the areas of literary criticism, language, linguistics, rhetoric, and folklore of all countries. Database also includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals. Time span: Indexing back to 1920s.

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Full-text Databases

• Academic Search Premier

  Provides abstracts and indexing for over 7,000 journals. Full text of articles for over 4,000 scholarly publications, including more than 3,100 peer-reviewed publications. Coverage: Multidisciplinary subjects including: social sciences, humanities, education, language & linquistics, arts & literature, medicine, ethnic studies

• JSTOR

  Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published prior to the most current five years.

• Project Muse

  Full text of recent issues of over 240 journals from 40 scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literary studies, history, the visual & performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many other arts and humanities and social science disciplines.

• Persée

  The website for scientific journals in social and human sciences, established by the Ministry of State Education, Higher Education and Research. The PERSEE website has as its mission the digitisation and online distribution of back collections of a vast corpus of periodicals.

• Literature Resource Center

  Full-text database of author biographies and bibliographies; criticism and reviews of authors' works. Included is material from many of the publisher's print reference publications including, among others, Contemporary Authors and Dictionary of Literary Biography. Coverage: Literary criticism and biographies of figures from all time periods writing in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism.

• Lexis-Nexis Academic -- Full-text database that offers a wide range of news, political, legal, business, and reference information in full-text format. Primary source of newspaper articles, including World News.

• Periodicals Index Online

  Access to 4,500 arts/humanities & social science journals published since the 19th-century in 40 languages, on 37 key subjects, e.g., architecture, archaeology, area studies, business, law, & linguistics, containing a full-text archive to over 300 periodical titles and direct linking to JSTOR. Coverage: Humanities and social sciences.

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Print Bibliographies

Year's Work in Modern Language Studies. Annual. 1929/30- .

LOCATION: McKeldin Library Reference Stacks

CALL NUMBER: PB1.Y45

Critical survey of work done in modern languages and literatures.

French XX Bibliography

Critical and biographical references for the study of French literature since 1885.

LOCATION: McKeldin Library Reference Stacks

CALL NUMBER: Z2173.F7

La Revue Blanche

Good reviews for early 20th Cent. v.1-30 (1891-1903)

LOCATION: McKeldin Library Periodicals Room - Microfilm

CALL NUMBER: AP20.R252

Online bibliography/index located at http://www.marcel-schwob.org/rb/

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Genres and Movements

Use the following subject headings to search for materials on the different genres and movements:

SURREALISM LITERATURE FRANCE
FRENCH POETRY -- [BY CENTURY]
FRENCH DRAMA -- [BY CENTURY]
FRENCH LITERATURE -- BLACK AUTHORS
FRENCH LITERATURE -- WOMEN AUTHORS

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Periodicals (Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers)

To locate hard copy and microform versions of periodicals in the UM Libraries, follow the steps outlined in the UM Library guide Finding Periodical Articles on Your Topic.

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Electronic Journals, Magazines & Newspapers

The University of Maryland Libraries subscribe to a number of electronic journals.
Access to these journals is through an alphabetical classification list through Research Port.

The following are directories and sites that link to hundreds of other electronic periodicals:

The Association of Research Libraries'
Directory of Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists which ceased publication in 2000 but may still be useful. The print version is available in McKeldin Library Reference Stacks Z286.E43D57.

Revues.org is a portal to many French electronic journals. "Revues.org est une fédération de revues en Sciences humaines et sociales qui défend une conception ouverte de l'édition scientifique. La constitution d'une véritable édition en ligne d'accès gratuit est un enjeu éditorial, scientifique et démocratique majeur. La mise en valeur de revues existant déjà sur papier, mais également de revues spécifiquement électroniques, participe au désenclavement international de la recherche française et à son émancipation de circuits de distribution et de lecture trop souvent confinés. Enfin, l'adoption innovante du support électronique rend possible de nouvelles formes d'édition, qui restent largement à inventer."

Online Newspapers organizes newspapers by continent and then country.

See also WESSWEB.

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Style Manuals for Citing Print and Electronic Sources

Consult the Guide: Citation Systems and Style Manuals

For help creating an annotated bibliography consult Preparing an Annotated Bibliography

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1995 or latest edition.
LOCATION: McKeldin Library Quick Reference
CALL NUMBER: LB2369.G53 1995

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
New York: Modern Language Association of America, latest ed..
LOCATION: McKeldin Library Quick Reference
CALL NUMBER: PN147.G444 1998.

Li, Xia and Nancy B. Crane. Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information. Medford, N.J.: Information Today, 1996.
LOCATION: McKeldin Library Quick Reference
CALL NUMBER: PN171.F56L5

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1994.
LOCATION: McKeldin Library Quick Reference
CALL NUMBER: BF76.7.P83 1994

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• University of Maryland French and Italian Languages and Literatures Homepage

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