Research Guides (LibGuides): Idea of the Theatre: Research Resources

WorldCat Discovery

Search Butler Libraries

REMEMBER: Use WorldCat Discovery to find:

Books, (ebooks, print books)
Media (Streaming video, DVDs, CDs, etc.)
Magazine and journals articles

Be sure to use the limiters on the left-hand side of the screen to narrow down your results!

Also, REMEMBER: Work out some of your search strategy before going online! Think about your topic. Write down key terms, concepts, titles, and the names of key people whose thinking or work is relevant to your topic. Be sure to include synonyms of key terms and concepts. Also, consider important geographic locations and time periods (i.e., geographic and chronological limiters).

InterLibrary Loan (ILL)

If you find materials in WorldCat that Butler Libraries do not own, you can obtain these through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). This is a service that enables Butler students to have access to library resources NOT OWNED by the Butler Libraries. You make Interlibrary Loan requests directly from the catalog or a database by clicking the "Request" button. If there is no request button, log on to your Library Account.

From your account you can:

submit requests (use the Requests tab)
check the status of your requests (under the Requests tab)
retrieve electronically delivered articles
request renewals for loaned items (in the Checkouts tab)

For all ILL questions contact Sarah Damery at 317-940-9677 or sdamery@butler.edu.

Places to Look for Theatre-Related Information

Drama Criticism (Literature Criticism Online) This link opens in a new window
Literature Criticism Online contains the complete full text of Contemporary Literary Criticism and Drama Criticism.
International Bibliography of Theater and Dance Full Text This link opens in a new window
International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text is the definitive research tool for the study of theatre and the performing arts. This database was initiated by the American Society for Theatre Research, and contains more than 450 full-text titles, including more than 140 full-text journals, and more than 300 full-text books & monographs.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR provides access to full-text academic electronic journals in various disciplines including economics and finance, political science, history, literature, anthropology, mathematics, sociology, statistics, and education.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Covers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc. Contains current full text scholarly journals which cover these fields and a significant collection of recent scholarly books.

Other Useful Databases:

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window This large multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 4,770 journals, including full text for over 4,000 peer-reviewed titles.
Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window This biographical database offers the in-depth, original profiles from the Current Biography and World Authors series
Biography Reference Center This link opens in a new window This database offers a collection of full-text biographies and unique narrative biographies. Including coverage for several of the most popular and heavily-researched biographies and genres, including those contained within Biography Today and Biography (both dating back to the first issue published).
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window Humanities International Index is a comprehensive database covering journals, books and other important reference sources in the humanities.
New York Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window The New York Times (1851-2010) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window LexisNexis Academic provides access to the full text of hundreds of major business and legal journals, magazines, and U.S. and international newspapers. Company financial, country, tax, medical, federal and state legal information, and accounting information can also be accessed.
Oxford Reference Online (ORO) This link opens in a new window The Premium Collection offers a huge range of fully-indexed, extensively linked, up to date, and cross-searchable dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press, including detailed information across a broad subject range from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions series.
Readers' Guide Full Text Select This link opens in a new window This full-text database provides searchable full text for a broad selection of the most popular periodicals.
Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 This link opens in a new window Readers’ Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 provides indexing of over three million articles from more than 550 leading magazines, including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.

Journals A-Z

In addition to several print subscriptions, the Butler Libraries provide access to many theatre-related journals through various subscription databases that include (at least some) full-text. To learn how and where to locate a particular journal title and issue, just click on the Journals A-Z link on the Butler Library Homepage and type in the title of the journal in the search box provided. If you do not find the title of the journal you are seeking in this index, search for the journal title using the WorldCat Discovery box!

Use the WorldCat Discovery Box to begin your search. You will find this box in the center of the Butler Libraries' homepage (www.butler.edu/library). This box allows you to search for holdings in the Butler Libraries and beyond and also searches the citations from select online subscription databases.

Once you have the results from your initial search, you can use the limiters on the left-hand side of the screen to narrow your results by database (including peer-reviewed articles!), online availability, format, or other useful criteria.

The Advanced Search mode will allow you to search for terms in specific fields (e.g., author, title, subject, etc.), select specific databases to search, and also limit by library (or library group), publication date range, and format.

Find books, articles, media, and more at Butler and beyond

World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre by Don Rubin World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre is the largest, international cooperative undertaking in the history of world theatre. In six outstanding volumes, this work documents artistic development all over the world, country by country, region by region. International and in depth, WECT's coverage includes playwriting, music theatre, dance theatre, theatre for young audiences, puppet theatre, design, architecture and developments in theatre technology, theatre training, criticism and scholarship. An incredible accomplishment, WECT is a project of the International Theatre Institute, International Federation for Theatre Research, International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts, and the International Association of Theatre Critics, with the support of UNESCO and the UNESCO World Decade for Cultural Development. Link leads to ebook version available with Butler University credentials.
Call Number: Vol.4: The Arab World is available as an E-book; the whole series is in print: REF PN1861 .W67 1994 v. 1-6
ISBN: 0415059283
Publication Date: 1994

AVON - Academic Video Online (Alexander Street Press) This link opens in a new window
AVON: Academic Video Online is a comprehensive multidisciplinary streaming video resource.
Digital Theatre + This link opens in a new window
Contains streaming videos of a variety of theatre productions and includes study materials and interviews with practitioners.
Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
Films on Demand is a state-of-the-art streaming video platform for a variety of educational media content.

Find DVDs owned by the Butler Libraries by searching via the WorldCat Discovery Search Box on the Library homepage. (Be sure to select: DVD under the Format limiter on the left-hand side of the initial search results page!)

Digital Libraries

Google Books
"Book Search works just like web search. Try a search on Google Books or on Google.com. When we find a book with content that contains a match for your search terms, we'll link to it in your search results ... If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given us permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy ... If you find a book you like, click on the "Buy this book" and "Borrow this book" links to see where you can buy or borrow the print book. " (from "About Google Books")
Hathi Trust Digital Library
The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) enables computational access for nonprofit and educational users to published works in the public domain and, in the future, on limited terms to works in-copyright from the HathiTrust.
The HTRC is a collaborative research center launched jointly by Indiana University and the University of Illinois, along with the HathiTrust Digital Library, to help meet the technical challenges of dealing with massive amounts of digital text that researchers face by developing cutting-edge software tools and cyberinfrastructure to enable advanced computational access to the growing digital record of human knowledge.
Internet Archive
"The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections, and provides specialized services for adaptive reading and information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities. " (From "About the Internet Archive" page)
Project Gutenberg
"Project Gutenberg offers over 40,000 free ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online.
We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers.
No fee or registration is required, but if you find Project Gutenberg useful, we kindly ask you to donate a small amount so we can buy and digitize more books. Other ways to help include digitizing more books, recording audio books, or reporting errors. " (From ProjectGutenberg website)

Idea of the Theatre

WorldCat Discovery

Places to Look for Theatre-Related Information

Digital Libraries

CONTACT

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