Reference Works
The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d edition provides the history and development of every word included from the date of its introduction into the language, while giving differences in meaning, spelling, pronunciation, usage, etc at different periods of the last 800 years and supporting such information by numerous quotations from the works of more than 5000 authors of all periods, including all writers before the 16th century and as many as possible of the important writers since then.
The Britannica Online includes the complete encyclopedia, as well as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the Britannica Book of the Year. You can find more than 72,000 articles; over 10,000 illustrations, including photographs, drawings, maps, and flags; and more than 75,000 definitions--including pronunciation guides and word histories--from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. The types of searches include word, phrase, or question searches under the articles, index or dictionary.
Indexes
The MIchigan Research LibrarY Network is the University of Michigan's computerized library system. It allows you access to MCAT, the online catalog to the U of M's libraries along with the periodicals and other indexes.
The Periodical Contents Index is an electronic index to the contents in over 2000 journals in the humanities and social sciences. The index includes international journals including French, German, Spanish and other Western languages.
The Article First database allows for content searches in various journals in science, technology, medicine, social sciences, business, the humanities, and popular culture. The database is updated daily and includes over 12,600 periodicals.
Full-Text Databases
The Eighteenth-Century Fiction site includes 77 complete works from 1700 to 1780. It allows you to do several types of searches: simple, boolean, proximity and bibliographic within these works. There is also a complete list of all the works included in the site for you to browse.
The English Poetry Database includes the works of over 1,350 poets from 600 to 1900. Various types of searches can be done including: simple, boolean, proximity, and bibliography.
The King James Bible also called Authorized Version, English translation of the Bible (1611) is still heavily used in churches and for private reading, especially by Protestants. The labor of this work took 7 years and the help of 54 scholars that had been approved by James to complete, utilizing previous English translations and texts in the original languages. The resulting translation had a marked influence on English style and was generally accepted as the standard English Bible for more than three centuries. Many allusions in various fields can still be traced to the language in the bible. This site allows you to do different searches within the contents of the bible, which include: simple, boolean, proximity, and citation. It also allows you to browse the bible by selecting individual books.
