Information Resources In The Humanities And The Arts

This familiar guide to information resources in the humanities and the arts, organized by subjects and emphasizing electronic resources, enables librarians, teachers, and students to quickly find the best resources for their diverse needs.

This familiar guide to information resources in the humanities and the arts, organized by subjects and emphasizing electronic resources, enables librarians, teachers, and students to quickly find the best resources for their diverse needs. Authoritative, trusted, and timely, Information Resources in the Humanities and the Arts: Sixth Edition introduces new librarians to the breadth of humanities collections, experienced librarians to the nature of humanities scholarship, and the scholars themselves to a wealth of information they might otherwise have missed. This new version of a classic resource—the first update in over a decade—has been refreshed to account for the myriad of digital resources that have rewritten the rules of the reference and research world, and been expanded to include significantly increased coverage of world literature and languages. This book is invaluable for a wide variety of users: librarians in academic, public, school, and special library settings; researchers in religion, philosophy, literature, and the performing and visual arts; graduate students in library and information science; and teachers and students in humanities, the arts, and interdisciplinary degree programs.

This familiar guide to information resources in the humanities and the arts, organized by subjects and emphasizing electronic resources, enables librarians, teachers, and students to quickly find the best resources for their diverse needs. Authoritative, trusted, and timely, Information Resources in the Humanities and the Arts: Sixth Edition introduces new librarians to the breadth of humanities collections, experienced librarians to nature of humanities scholarship, and the scholars themselves to a wealth of information they might otherwise have missed. This new version of a classic resource—the first update in over a decade—has been refreshed to account for the myriad of digital resources that have rewritten the rules of the reference and research world, and been expanded to include significantly increased coverage of world literature and languages. This book is invaluable for a wide variety of users: librarians in academic, public, school, and special library settings; researchers in religion, philosophy, literature, and the performing and visual arts; graduate students in library and information science; and teachers and students in humanities, the arts, and interdisciplinary degree programs.

This study explored the perspectives and information behaviors of scholars in the humanities. The following general questions were examined: How do humanities scholars think about, organize, and perform their research? How are information sources used throughout the research process? And, how do electronic information sources affect work practices? In addition, the research also looked at two specific questions related to research library collections and services: What functions and characteristics make one resource better than another? And, how can the traditional role of the library as a repository for printed works be reconciled with the provision of virtual, unallocated resources? Participants were 33 humanities scholars from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago. Data were collected by project-based semi-structured interviews, selected case studies, and follow-up semi-structured interviews. Findings are reported in the following areas: (1) ways of reading, including chaining to enable reading; (2) collaborative networking; (3) researching and searching, including collections as capital, many states of primary materials, multitude of sources, access tools for speed and scope, diverse skills and strategies, generic searching problems, and browsing across collections and tools; and (4) ways of writing, including information management, accretion, and refinement, as well as oscillating and overlapping synthesis work. One of the last sections is "Trends: The Evolving Information Environment for Humanists." Methods are appended. (Contains 29 references.) (MES)

The number of information sources and the diversification of formats are revolutionizing library and scholarly practice. While accessing information is easier, evaluation of resources has become increasingly more difficult. Covering a broader territory and more sources than previous editions, this book offers an up-to-date, reliable guide to nearly 1,400 of the most important and representative information sources in the immense discipline of humanities studies. Following the basic organization of previous editions, Blazek and Aversa present chapters on sources (reference tools) and access (ways to find and retrieve information) for each subject covered (e.g., language and literature, philosophy, visual arts). For the first time the authors have included web resources and their URLs on a highly selective basis. All sources have been reviewed, updated, and in many cases expanded. Computerized databases (both online and CD-ROM) are integrated with the books. Detailed annotations give users an in-d

Literary Research and the Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Eras: Strategies and Sources is a guide to scholarly research in the field of medieval English literature covering the period 450 CE to 1500 CE. Graduate students and scholars researching this period face many challenges: working in two distinct literary traditions, comprehending multiple languages (Old English, Middle English, Latin, Anglo-Norman, and French), knowing the manuscript tradition for a particular title and the research methodologies for discovering and locating primary sources in the print and digital realms, and the awareness of the overlap and assimilation of literary themes with religious, historical, cultural, and political perspectives. The volume presents the best practices for building a foundation of sound scholarship practices in the field of medieval English literature. This volume explores primary and secondary resources, including general literary research guides; types of library catalogs; print and online bibliographies and indexes; scholarly journals and series; manuscripts, archives, and digital collections; genres; tools for understanding Old and Middle English such as dictionaries, lexicons, thesauri, glosses, etymologies, palaeographies, and text mining tools; and Web resources. The final chapter researches the shifting reputation of the poet, Thomas Hoccleve. Given the interdisciplinary nature of medieval studies, an appendix of additional readings in art, history, music, philosophy, religion, science, social sciences, and theater is provided.