Research and Reference Resources

Books and Literature

See our Don't Miss Lists - Reading Recommendations and New Additions to the Collections

Book Discussion Guides

Reading Group Guides - http://www.readinggroupguides.com
Contains more than 500 reading group discussion guides, information on how to start and run a reading group, and links of interest to established groups.

Reading Group Choices - http://readinggroupchoices.com/
Interactive guide to books of all genres, with discussion questions and more.

Book News & Reviews

AwardWeb - http://www.dpsinfo.com/awardweb
This site is a comprehensive guide to current, international literary award information for all genres.

Booklist - http://www.ala.org/booklist/index.html
The digital counterpart of the American Library Association's Booklist magazine. Offers a selection of book and audiovisual media reviews, along with feature articles.

BookSpot - http://www.bookspot.com/
Book news, lists, reviews, awards, and author information.

Book TV - http://www.booktv.org
This website serves as a companion to C-Span 2'S weekend programming which features non-fiction books and their authors. Advance information on programming is offered, as is background information on authors and links to bestseller lists from arounf the country.

Mosaicbooks.com/The Black Literary Showcase - http://www.mosaicbooks.com
Online counterpart to Mosaic magazine. Reviews of new Black and Hispanic literature. Also has a listing of book clubs across the U.S. that focus on African American literature, including some that meet online.

New York Review of Books - http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/index.html
Online version of the weekly magazine. Articles, classifieds, and an archive of past issues.

Book Sales

Booksellers

Electronic Books

Bartleby.com - http://www.bartleby.com/
Find standard reference works, versions of the Bible, verse, fiction, and nonfiction, all in the public domain and reprinted in a searchable format on the internet. Project Gutenberg is a similar resource.

netLibrary - http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/ref/databases.html
Brought to you by the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium, 3000+ non-fiction titles and 4000 free electronic texts, fully searchable by keyword or full text. Requires a South Central Library System/Madison Public Library library card barcode to access.

Overdrive - http://dbooks.wplc.info
Digital audiobooks, available to Madison Public Library as part of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium. Requires a South Central Library System/Madison Public Library library card barcode to access. [search tips]

General Resources/Databases

Children's Literature Web Guide - http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html
Includes children's book awards, best books lists, bestsellers, movies and television based on children's books, information about authors, online children's stories and more. Has not been updated recently.

Literature Resource Center - http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/cgi-bin/auth.cgi?connectto=LR
Comprehensive resource for locating background information, biographies, plot summaries, and criticism of many titles and authors, from medieval to contemporary literature. Requires a South Central Library System/Madison Public Library library card barcode to access.

LitFinder - http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/cgi-bin/auth.cgi?connectto=LT
Access to the resoures of Roth Publishing's coverage of poetry, stories, essays, plays, speeches and a glossary of literary terms. Organized by genre, subject, contemporaty work, and kid's korner. Requires a South Central Library System/Madison Public Library library card barcode to access.

Morton Grove Public Library's Web Sites for Book Lovers - http://www.webrary.org/rs/rslinks.html
Book reviews, author interviews, award winners, bestseller lists and much more.

What Do I Read Next? - http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/cgi-bin/auth.cgi?connectto=WD
Looking for something new to read? Using What Do I Read Next, you can find it. Search more than 100,000 recommended titles and 58,000 plot summaries by genre, subject, author, title, and more! Requires a South Central Library System/Madison Public Library library card barcode to access. [search tips]

Genre Fiction

All About Romance - http://www.likesbooks.com/
"The back-fence for lovers of romance novels."

AllReaders.com - http://www.allreaders.com
Choose from hundreds of links to authors and titles in SciFi/Fantasy, Mystery, Literature, History, Biography, Romance, and more. Find what readers like you think of a particular book or author.

The ClueLass HomePage - http://www.cluelass.com/
ClueLass offers links to sites for both readers and writers of mysteries.

DarkEcho - http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/index_new.html
Reviews, author information and extensive links on the horror genre.

Morton Grove Public Library's Web Sites for Book Lovers - http://www.webrary.org/rs/rslinks.html
Book reviews, author interviews, award winners, bestseller lists and much more.

Science Fiction Resource Guide - http://www.sflovers.org/SFRG/
Provides links to many sources of information on science fiction, from online works to lists of award winners, from SF art to reviews of books.

SF Site - http://www.sfsite.com
Links to reviews, fan sites, newsgroups, interviews, and more on Fantasy and Science Fiction literature.

What's Next Database of Kent District Library - http://ww2.kdl.org/libcat/WhatsNextNEW.asp
A reference for works of fiction in series. Enter a title, author, or name of a book in a series and get a list of the titles in that series.

Libraries & Library Catalogs

The Library of Congress Catalogs - http://catalog.loc.gov
South Central Library System Libraries - http://www.scls.info/about/directory.html
University of Wisconsin Library Catalog-MadCat - http://madcat.library.wisc.edu
WISCAT On-Line Catalog - http://www.wiscat.net
Wisconsin Library Directory - http://dpi.wi.gov/pld/wis_lib.html
Wisconsin State Law Library - http://wsll.state.wi.us
WorldCat - http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/cgi-bin/auth.cgi?connectto=WC

Writer's Resources

Bartleby.com - http://www.bartleby.com/
Find quotations, poetry, English language style and usage, thesauri, encyclopedias, fiction works, biographical information on authors and much more in this comprehensive reference resource.

Citation Styles - http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html
The style to be used in citing source materials in research papers varies according to discipline. This site has information on how to correctly cite electronic sources employing the following styles: MLA, APA, Chicago, CBE. It also offers links to websites with information on how to cite using other styles.

YourDictionary.com - http://www.yourdictionary.com
A massive dictionary index that includes foreign language, thesauri and many specialized ones. Formerly A Web of Online Dictionaries compiled by Robert Beard at Bucknell University.

Writer's Guilds
Writer's guilds provide links to authors, as well as professional and fan groups.

Academy of American Poets - http://www.poets.org
Horror Writers Association - http://www.horror.org
Mystery Writers of America - http://www.mysterywriters.net
Romance Writers of America - http://www.rwanational.com
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America - http://www.sfwa.org
The Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators - http://www.scbwi.org
Western Writers of America - http//www.westernwriters.org

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