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• Contents of This Guide:
• What's in the MLAIB?
• What can I use it for?
• How do I use it?
• Tips on using the MLAIB
• Where can I get more help?

Using the MLA International Bibliography

What's in the MLAIB?

The MLA International Bibliography indexes critical materials about all literatures (except classical Greek and Roman), languages, folklore and film. Formats indexed include:

The MLAIB does not include the following formats:

There are no restrictions placed on the place of origin or publication of a work, or on its original language. The database provides access to over one million, three hundred thousand entries gleaned from essay collections, dissertations, monographs and over 6,000 journals. The MLA International Bibliography covers materials from 1926 to the present and is updated 10 times a year, although not all indexing is up to date.

What can I use it for?

You can use this database to find criticism on a work of literature (Heart of Darkness), an author (Toni Morrison), a film (Jaws), or a television program (Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) You can also look for works on linguistic concepts (code-switching), theatrical works (The Glass Menagerie) and folklore and fairy tales (Baba Yaga.) Basically, it's a good starting place for finding information about any kind of literary or linguistic topic, including oral storytelling and performance.

How do I use it?

Getting hold of articles and book chapters using MLA is a two-step process. First, you have to find items in MLA that interest you. Second, you have to find those items in the library.

Searching MLA

1. From the Library's home page, click on the link to "Articles, Databases & Indexes" under the heading "Find Resources."
   
2. Next, click on the link to "Browse Databases A-Z." This will let you pick from an alphabetically arranged list of the Library's databases.
   
3. Click on M --> MLA International Bibliography. This will connect you to the database.
4. You're automatically dropped into the "Advanced Search" function. You can type your search terms into one of the three left-hand search boxes, and then choose a field in which to search from the drop-down menu beside. For instance, you can search for "comic relief" in the default fields, which is the same as a keyword search. This will find any items that mention comic relief.
5. Experiment with searching by title (Eugene Onegin), author (Greenblatt, Stephen), and publication info (Routledge.)

Finding Items in the Library

Because MLA indexes so many different kinds of materials (see above, What's in the MLAIB?), figuring out how to get hold of an item can be a challenge. Your means of tracking down an item will depend on what kind of item it is.

Fortunately, the MLAIB tells you clearly what kind of item you've found in the "Document Information" field. You can immediately see whether the item in question is a book article, a journal article, a dissertation abstract, or something else. For example:

Use the table below for help on finding different kinds of documents in the library:

Tips on using the MLAIB

Getting what you want out of the database can take some practice. Here are some tips to get you started:

• If you're researching a topic from scratch, you should probably start with a keyword search. Keyword searching is very general, and will retrieve all items that mention your search terms anywhere, even just in passing.
  • For instance, if you were interested in criticism of humor in Canadian literature, your first search might look like this:

  
  

• It's not necessary to enter terms like criticism or literature, because virtually everything in MLA is a form of literary criticism.
• You can enter more than one keyword in a single search box. If you do so (i.e., canadian humor in the top search box), MLA will assume you want to search those words as a phrase.
• This search looks for the phrase canadian humor anywhere in an item
• To search for records that mention the terms "canadian" and "humor," without limiting yourself solely to records with the exact phrase "canadian humor," enter the two words separated by an "and," like this:



• Remember that when searching British and Commonwealth sources, you may need to do more than one search, using both U.S. and Commonwealth spelling for words like "humour" and "labour."
• If you get very few hits on your first search, look closely at your keywords and see whether there are any typographical or spelling errors, or any reasonable variants you could use. This problem is more common than you may think! Some common keyword quandaries are:
  
  • post-colonial / post colonial / postcolonial (critical and theoretical terms)
  • First World War / WWI / World War I / Great War (time periods and events)
  • Black / African American (ethnic and cultural groups)
  • H.D. / Hilda Doolittle (author names and pseudonyms)
  
  
• Once you've done a keyword search, you may want to limit or refine your search. Click on an item from your keyword search that seems close to what you want, and look at the phrases in the "Subject Terms " field. Subject terms can help you to narrow your search to more specific words and phrases, or to branch out to related terms you might not have thought of. The subject terms for this item are circled in pink:

• You can do a more specific search on "white male characters" by clicking the links in those subject terms. This will automatically run a search on those subject terms (which the database abbreviates as "DE" for "descriptor"):

  
  

• You can also limit your search according to language, date of publication, et cetera, by using the remaining search boxes:  

   

  
  

• Remember that if you search by title, you are searching for items with your search terms in their titles; in other words, you will only find articles about Eugene Onegin that mention the book's name in their title. To do a more thorough search for items about Eugene Onegin, you should search on these terms as keywords. Searching for "Eugene Onegin" as a title yields about 40 titles; searching for it as a keyword yields about 300 items.
• Similarly, remember that an "author" search looks for your search terms as the author of the critical item or commentary, and not as the author of an original work. So, searching for Cather, Willa as an author yields only 1 item, which is a work of criticism authored by Cather. Searching for Cather, Willa as a keyword yields about 1500 items about Cather and her work.
• You can make your search more flexible by using truncation to catch variations on your search terms. In MLA, the symbol used for truncation is the asterisk: * Typing the stem of a word and then the asterisk tells the database to search for any possible endings of that stem. So if you want to find criticism on the military and militarism in literature, your search might look like this:

This would find items that use the terms military, militaries, militarism,and so on.

• You can save a permanent link to a useful search, by clicking the "Display link to this search " link that displays at the top of your search results:
  
   
  You'll see a URL that you can use to return to this search and its results from any computer that is logged into the database through the UO's subscription.

• To review your search so far, click the blue "Search History/Alerts " tab above the search results. This will show you all the searches you've run in your current session, and allow you to revise them, by simply returning you to the advanced search page with the search in progress.

Where can I get more help?

• There are "help" files in MLA to help you plan and conduct your search. Click on "Database Help," and browse the files to find the subject you need.
• Drop by the reference desk and talk to a librarian if you're having trouble using this database or any other.
• For a one-on-one tutorial session, contact Elizabeth Peterson, Literature Librarian, at emp@uoregon.edu to make an appointment.

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