Arts and Letters Division   Guide 2a

Library Resources

 

 

“The humanities are an essentially human enterprise of which the record reposes in books in libraries; this is where we look for truth, knowledge, and wisdom.”

Gertrude Himmelfarb

 

 

 

Welcome to the support website for the students, staff, and faculty of the Arts and Letters Division. This is the place to start for research in the subject disciplines of English literature, foreign languages and literature, art and art history, theatre and media studies, and music.

 

The academic study of the arts provides some unique challenges for both novice and experienced researchers. Here are some places to start.

 

*      Information skills: how to define a question, find resources, and use them properly, and why this is important to know

What is information literacy?

    What are the skills needed to be information-literate?

    Who is information-literate?

 

*      Find books at SMCM and in the University of Maryland library system

SMCM Library catalog

        University of Maryland Library catalogs

 

*      Find articles using the SMCM online databases. Can’t find what you need? Ask for help at the reference desk

Online databases: indexes, abstracts, and full-text

 

*      The Internet is a wonderful resource for images, sound bites and samples, e-published articles and scholarly information-sharing. It is also a wonderful resource for the weird, wacky, and downright odd. Here is a checklist to help you tell the difference

Checklist for Evaluating Web Resources

 

And here are some places we’ve already viewed for you. These websites have been evaluated and are recommended for your research needs

Art and art history

English literature and language, and linguistics

Foreign languages and literature

 

 

*      Once you have completed your research and are preparing your work, you must remember to cite, or attribute, any material you have quoted, either directly (words taken directly from the source and placed within quotation marks) or indirectly (a paraphrase of the source material that holds the original idea). Failure to properly attribute your source material is plagiarism, and may result in academic penalties according to the Academic Misconduct policy

Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities

 

Here are some websites to check as you are preparing your research

MLA Citation Styles

Citation guide for electronic/online sources

Chicago Manual of Style

 

 

 

For questions, comments, or reference help, please contact me at 240-895-4285 or by email

Kerie Lynn Nickel, Reference and Instruction Librarian