Essential Resources and Other Sources: Humanities

The Humanities Department of the State Library Resource Center covers such topics as religion, philosophy, theater, movies, TV, language, literature, and library science.

Essential Resources


The Essay and General Literature Index: Indexes books of essays on subjects including both philosophy, history, and literature.

Encyclopedia of Religion: Detailed articles covering religions from all parts of the world, religious figures, gods and goddesses, concepts, terms, and peoples.

New Catholic Encyclopedia. Information about all aspects of the Roman Catholic religion, other religions, saints, popes, and other figures of importance to Catholicism.

Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia. Information about literary works, fictional characters, authors and poets, literary terms, literary movements and trends throughout history.

A Handbook to Literature. Definitions of literary terms of all types, detailed explanations with examples.

Novels for Students. Analyzes individual novels with brief biographies of the authors, plot summaries, analyses of each character, themes, discussions of styles, excerpts from literary criticisms, and bibliographies.

Contemporary Literary Criticism. Offers literary criticism for current writers or those who died after 1960. Index at Reference desk.

The Columbia-Granger’s Index to Poetry. The standard work for locating specific poems in collections.

Oxford English Dictionary. The authoritative dictionary of the English Language, giving not only definitions, but also the history of each word.

Contemporary Authors. Bio-bibliographies of authors, including lists of works and brief biographies.

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. Guide to the most commonly used style for language and literature term papers, including online and other electronic citations.

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. Chronological listing of famous quotations dating from Biblical times to the present.

Other Sources

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In depth and highly detailed articles on philosophy including terms, biographies, histories of philosophical movements and eras.

Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. In-depth historical and religious information about the Qur’an.

The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Location of each word used in the King James Version of the Bible, along with the use of word variations according to translation.

Anchor Bible Dictionary. Comprehensive information about the bible including etymology of names and words, descriptions of places plus maps, and histories of events from non-Biblical sources.

Shakespeare for Students. Analyzes Shakespeare's works including plot summaries, analyses of each character, themes, discussions of styles, excerpts from literary criticisms, and bibliographies.

Twentieth Century Literature Criticism. Offers literary criticism for authors writing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Film Encyclopedia. Comprehensive listings of actors, directors, film terminology, producers, and other information.

The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States. A very detailed series of volumes covering the years 1893-1950 and then 1961-1970, offering extensive plot summaries as well as various indices.