Resources
Finding Background Information
To find background information on the novels you read, search in these credible and authoritative sources. Bowman Library subscribes to databases that will help you locate information quickly and easily.
Use the following database links to start your research:
-
Academic Search Premier (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Note: Our subscription will be changing from Academic Search Premier to Academic Search Elite January 2026
Provides searching of over 8,500 journals, including peer-reviewed, across a wide range of topics. coverage: 1975 to present
-
Biography in Context This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive database of biographical information on more than one million people throughout history and around the world. It combines biographies from 70 Gale Group publications, the complete Marquis Who's Who, Merriam-Webster's collegiate and biographical dictionaries, and full-text articles from over 250 periodicals. The Biography Research Guide will help you get started doing biographical research. -
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Provides full text criticisms, biographies, bibliographies, and work overviews. "Find up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on nearly 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world, supplemented by the scholarly materials of the Scribner Writers Series and Twayne's World, U.S., and English Authors Series." -
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Note: JSTOR subscription will expand to the Full Access Model in January 2026
A full-text collection of more than 400 journals in business and the liberal arts, with especially strong coverage of business, finance, economics, history, regional studies, education, and sociology. (Our subscription includes the Arts & Sciences I, Arts & Sciences IV, Business I, and Business II collections.) JSTOR is notable for the high quality of the journals it includes. The most recent three to five years of each journal are usually excluded from JSTOR, however.
Use one of Google's advanced search operators for more accurate and faster results:
Site:
Example: [site:NYTimes.com Pachinko] - will give you results only from the New York Times
Try
-
site:TheGuardian.com
-
site:NPR.org
-
site:NewYorker.com
In addition, in your site searches try including -
-
the novel title plus the word review
-
the full author name plus the word interview
-
For example try - site:npr.org 'dave eggers' interview
-
Or try - site:bbc.com 'girl, woman, other' review
-
Finding Books and Ebooks 
Bowman Library has a large variety of books and ebooks that are chosen for their relevance to the courses offered. You can access ebooks directly from the library website whether your off or on campus. Books and ebooks are good for finding overviews and history of your topic. You don't need to read the whole book to get the information you need for your project; often one chapter of a scholarly book will cover the information you need.
Tip: Use [SU:author name] in the search box to find items about the author of the novel or memoir.
Example:[SU:Min Jin Lee]
Find books by searching the library catalog:
