LibGuides: Afro-American Literature: Home

Primary Sources

Find primary source material about a person or a topic:

Litfinder This link opens in a new window
Litfinder provides access to a wealth of literary works and secondary-source materials covering world literature and authors throughout history. Including more than 150,000 full-text poems and over 800,000 poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays. Researchers can easily target the information they are looking for through various refine search and results limiter options. Biographies, work summaries, photographs, and a glossary are also included. The easy-to-use search paths allow users to easily target the information they are looking for or to browse the database through various refine search and results limiter options.

The library provides the following resources to help you discover overview information about subjects related to the African-American experience.

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History
A five-volume set and supplement covering all aspects of the African-American experience from 1619 to the present day. Using biographies, historical essays, and thematic pieces, many written by foremost scholars, it addresses a wide array of subjects in over 2,300 articles to define in one source the cultural roots, participation in American life, and current condition of the African-American community. (2nd edition.)

The library provides some resources to find biographical information about people. The most important of these is:

Gale In Context: Biography This link opens in a new window
Gale In Context: Biography is built on a foundation of more than 650,000 biographical entries covering international figures from all time periods and areas of study. Providing coverage of the most searched and studied people, Biography In Context includes over 4,500 portal pages on contemporary and historical figures. It offers authoritative reference content alongside, videos, audio selections, images, primary sources, and magazine and journal articles. Users can also search for people based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender, as well as by keyword and full text.

For literary figures, additional resources include:

Dictionary of Literary Biography This link opens in a new window
More than 16,487 documents containing detailed information on authors, literary genres, aesthetic movements, and literary events of note.
The Advanced Search is a more effective method of searching this collection.

In order to find information about writers' works, check out these resources:

Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Literature Resource Center is Gale’s most current, comprehensive and reliable online literature database offering the broadest and most representative range of authors and their works including a deep collection of full-text critical and literary analysis. The database provides researchers with evidence to support their literary responses and thesis statements through a diversity of scholars and critics that ensure all views and perspectives are represented.
Bloom's Literature This link opens in a new window
Literature resources -- biography, criticism, summaries and reviews. Also includes videos of performances of select works and help with how to write about certain authors.

Noodletools Login, Registration and Revalidation This link opens in a new window
Use this link to register, revalidate or simply log into your Noodletools account. After you've signed in as a DACC student, you will need to log in with your Noodletools user ID and password.

Noodletools HelpDesk
Online support for Noodletools.
Noodletools LibGuide
Takes you to the LibGuide to help you with NoodleTools.