• Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature - Clapp Reference PQ7081.A1 E56 1997
• Literary Cultures of Latin America - Clapp Reference PQ 7081 .A1 L525 2004 - includes North America
• Latino and Latina Writers - Clapp Reference PS153.H56 L39 2004
• Chicano Writers - Clapp Reference PS153.M4 C484 1992
• Hispanic Literature of the United States: a Comprehensive Reference - Clapp Reference PS153.H56 K36 2003
• Literature Resource Center - ON TRIAL UNTIL OCTOBER 31
• Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Literature in the United States - Clapp Reference PQ 7420.2 .K3 1989
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States - Clapp Reference E184.S75 O97 2005

Use the Wellesley library catalog to find books, videos, and journals (not individual articles).

• use a keyword search for simple concepts
  
  
• find a book that looks useful, click on the title, then click on the Full Record tab to see the subject terms
• click on each subject term to find "more like this"

Some useful subject headings for this topic:

• [your author's name, last name first] -- Criticism and Interpretation
• Cuban Americans Fiction [or whatever country of origin interests you]
• American Literature Hispanic American Authors
• Hispanic American Authors
• Hispanic Americans in literature
  
  
• use advanced search for more complex searching
  
  
  • use synonyms to find all the ways your topic might be expressed (latinos OR latinas OR hispanics)
  • use truncation to save time (chican* for chicano, chicana, chicanos, etc.)
  • combine multiple concepts using AND for best results (women or gender or female) AND (novel* or literature or drama*)
  • enclose your search terms in parentheses!
    
    
• If our copy is checked out, click on to the right of the title to request a book quickly (2-4 days)
• If NExpress doesn't have it, click on in our catalog (2-4 days)
• Search WorldCat to find material we don’t own, click on and request through ILL (interlibrary loan)
• In a hurry? Get a BLC card and borrow the book directly from a nearby library

tips:

• to find the full text of an article, click on the title for the full record, then look for the Find It! @ Wellesley button to link to the full text (online if we have it, or in print, or to the Interlibrary loan request if we don't own the journal)
  
  
• do your searching early and place interlibrary loan requests NOW for books and articles we don't have -- then, when you're ready to start reading and writing, you'll have a great selection of materials. If you wait, your choices will be very limited.

most useful databases

• HAPI - Hispanic American Periodicals Index - social science and humanities journal articles about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States
  
  
• Handbook of Latin American Studies - index with abstracts of articles, book chapters, and papers on Latin American life & culture, 1935 to present
  
  
• Informe - indexing, full text, and images to scholarly and popular Spanish-language and bilingual publications. ON TRIAL UNTIL OCTOBER 31 ONLY
  
  
• Fuente Academica - full text access to more than 200 Spanish-language publications, covering all areas of academic study. ON TRIAL UNTIL OCTOBER 31 ONLY
  
  
• Latin America Database Archives  - economic & political news articles & analysis of Latin America, 1986 to present
  
  
• MLA Bibliography · off campus - articles on all things literary - all genres, all cultures, all languages
  
  

databases with specialized content

• Ethnic NewsWatch - full text from US ethnic newspapers (Asian, Latino, African American, Native American), including book reviews
  
  
• Sociological Abstracts- articles on all aspects of sociology; selected full text from 1963 to present.
  
  
• PAIS - index to articles about political, social & economic issues, public affairs, 1937 to present.
  
  
• America: History & Life - index of articles on American history, searchable by historical time period
• Historical Abstracts - the sister to America: History & Life, covering history in the rest of the world
  
  
• Women's Studies International · offcampus access - women and gender studies, 1972 to present

multidisciplinary databases - good for all topics

• Academic Search Premier · off campus and Expanded Academic ASAP - great starting point for scholarly & popular articles in every discipline; mostly full text from about 1980 to present · tip: select "peer reviewed" to limit to scholarly articles
  
  
• Periodicals Index Online - Index to articles published in over 4500 journals in the humanities & social sciences in 40 languages, 1665 to 1995
  
  
• JSTOR - full text of scholarly articles in all fields, up to 3 to 5 years ago (not recent articles!)
  
  

• Latin American Network Information Centre (LANIC) - Humanities & Society & Culture
• Latin American Arts & Culture
• Latino Resources on the Web
  

Criteria to keep in mind when choosing and using soures:

• Accuracy - Does the author cite her/his sources and are they legitimate?
• Authority - Who wrote the source? Are they credible?
• Objectivity - Does the author have a bias, political or commercial or persuasive?
• Currency - Is this information new or based on outdated sources? Can you tell how current it is?

Wellesley College Library • WCIS • Laura Reiner • last modified:October 12, 2007