Guides: Theatre Arts: Books & Articles

Using Citations to Find Books

If your citation is a book, use Franklin, the Library catalog. Franklin will help you find the library in which the book is located, and the call number.

You can search for a specific book by title, author, or ISBN. You can also do a keyword or subject keyword search to find books on a particular topic.

Other important resources for finding books:

Other Libraries
If the book is in "LIBRA"
Reading Call Numbers - a visual guide from the University of Arizona Libraries

Not Owned by Penn?

Books and articles not owned by Penn are still available through interlibrary loan. Consider using these services:

BorrowDirect & EZBorrow
Items arrive in 3-5 business days, and can be checked out for 6 weeks (with one 6-week renewal).
General Interlibrary Loan - Request Book
To be used when books are not available at Penn, in BorrowDirect, or EZBorrow. Materials arrive in 5-10 business days. Borrowing length varies by lending institution.
General Interlibrary Loan - Request Article
To be used when an article is not available in any Penn database or print journal. Articles are scanned and linked via email within 5-10 business days.

Top Databases in Theatre Arts

MLA International Bibliography
Literature, languages, folklore, and linguistics. Includes English and foreign languages. Covers 1963 to the present.

International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance
Contains scholarly articles as well as periodical reviews of theatrical productions.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature
Topics covered include: English prose, poetry, fiction, films, biography, travel writing, literary theory, and studies of individual authors; language, syntax, phonology, lexicology, semantics, stylistics, and dialectology; bibliography, manuscript studies, textual studies, history of publishing; traditional culture of the English-speaking world, customs, beliefs, narratives, song, dance, and material culture. Covers 1920 - present (but lags by one year).
World Shakespeare Bibliography Online
Annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare and published or produced between 1972 and mid-2001.
ARTbibliographies Modern
Covers painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, performance art, installation works, video art, computer and electronic art, body art, graffiti, artists' books, theater arts, crafts, jewelry, illustration.
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
Covers architecture, architectural design, archeology, furniture and decoration, historic preservation, the history of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, urban planning.
Art & Architecture Source
Coverage of 380 periodicals and more than 220 books. Indexing and abstracts for more than 780 academic journals, magazines and trade publications, as well as for over 230 books. The database also provides an image collection of over 63,000 images provided by Picture Desk and others.
A leading database for the study of art and architecture...provides full-text coverage of 380 periodicals and more than 220 books. [Coverage of periodicals mostly begins with 1980s or later, but some titles are indexed for longer periods as far back as the 1930s.] In addition, Art & Architecture Source offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 780 academic journals, magazines and trade publications, as well as for over 230 books. The database also provides selective coverage for 70 additional publications and an Image Collection of over 63,000 images provided by Picture Desk and others. Designed for use by a diverse audience that includes art scholars, artists, designers, college students, and general researchers, [t]his database covers a wide variety of pertinent subjects, including antiques, art, art history, interior and landscape design, and much more. {adapted from publisher's description}
Bibliography of the History of Art
Covers European and American art from the fourth century to the present.
Design and Applied Arts Index
Abstracts and bibliographic records for articles, news items, and reviews published in design and applied arts periodicals from 1973 onwards.

Art Index Retrospective
Coverage includes materials in English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. Reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed materials are included.

Interdisciplinary Databases

EBSCO MegaFILE
General, multidisciplinary periodical database, covering all scholarly disciplines, with many general and popular magazines, and news sources. Includes bibliographic citations with indexing and abstracts for more than 16,000 periodicals.
JSTOR
JSTOR specializes in making available the back issues of journals in a wide variety of humanities and social science disciplines. Issues are available both as images and as text, making searching possible both within each title and across the whole database.

Penn's subscription currently includes all the available collections:
- the Arts & Sciences Collection I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and the Complement
- the Business II & III Collection
- the Biological Sciences Collection
- the Health & General Science Collection
- the Language and Literature Collection
- the Music Collection
- the 19th Century British Pamphlets
Access to journals from JSTOR is restricted to current Penn faculty, staff and students.

Printing from the JSTOR database requires downloading a helper application called JPrint.

ISI Indexes

Google Scholar
Access to Google Scholar with Penn-only links to full-text articles. Once authenticated through Penn's proxy, full-text articles to which Penn Libraries subscribe will become available within the Google Scholar search results.