Getting Started: Selected Reference Works

Begin your research with reference works to find background information, locate facts, and build a bibliography. Don't forget the reference collection hold German dictionaries and style manuals.

German Dictionaries

Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch
Ref PF3625 .G7 v.1-17
The classic philological dictionary of the German language. Wahrig's Deutsches Wörterbuch
Ref PF3625 .W2 2000
The newest German dictionary in the reference collection; completely updated to reflect revised standards of German spelling.

Oxford Duden German Dictionary
Ref PF3640 .O94 1999
A German-English / English -German dictionary; updated to reflect revised standards of German spelling.

Das Stilwörterbuch (Duden)
Ref PF3528 .D835 2001
An indispensable dictionary of German style.

wissen.de
Search Wahrig's Deutsches Wörterbuch online through this German portal. LEO English/German Dictionary
An online dual language dictionary.

German Literature

Deutsches Literatur Lexikon
Ref PT35 .K6 v.1-21, supp.1-5
Provides basic biographical information about deutschsprachige authors, as well as bibliographies of their works and relevant secondary works. Kindlers neues Literatur Lexikon
Ref PN41 .K53 1998
A revision of the classic literature dictionary; includes critical summaries of major works in German and world literature. Encyclopedia of German Literature
Ref PT41 .E63 2000 v.1-2
Biographical sketches of prominent German language authors, accompanied by bibliographies of selected works and recommended secondary literature. The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature
Ref PT41 .F46 1997
Focuses on women's contributions to German culture; each article provides a bibliography for further reading. The Oxford Companion to German Literature
Ref PT41 .G3 1997
Contains entries on German authors, literary works, and themes or topics addressed in German literature.

Other German Reference Works

Deutsche biographische Enzyklopädie
Ref CT759. D48 1995 v.1-12
The most comprehensive source of historical and current German biography; contains 26,000 biographical essays.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture
Ref DD290.26 .E53 1999
Covers post 1945 German literature, film, music, political life, architecture, religion, mass media, and more.

Europa World Year Book
Ref JN1 .E85 2001 v.1
The entry for Germany provides a survey of recent German history and politics, a statistical survey with data about population, industry, and finance, and a directory to major political parties, governmental agencies, and media agencies.

Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990
Ref DD14 .M64 1998 v.1-2
A good source for background information on modern German history.

Finding Books

Two kinds of books, monographs and essay collections, compose the majority of Gould library's collection. A monograph offers an extended analysis of a given subject by a single author, while an essay collection bring together articles, often by different authors, on related topics. In Bridge, Gould Library's online catalog:

• Begin with a word search.

• Enter words that describe your topic (names, places, events, etc.). Note that you do not need to enter umlauts.
• When you find a book on your topic, examine its subject headings for relevance to your topic.
• Click on a hyperlinked subject heading to perform subject heading search and retrieve related books.

• Perform a subject heading search in Bridge only if you know a valid Library of Congress subject heading.

• Search "German Literature" to browse a list of relevant subject headings, such as:
  German Literature -- 18th Century -- History And Criticism
  German Literature -- Film And Video Adaptations
  German Literature -- Jewish Authors -- Translations Into English
• Note that many Library of Congress subject headings relevant to German literature do not begin with "German literature."
  Brecht, Bertolt, 1898-1956 -- Correspondence
  Holocaust, Jewish, 1939-1945 -- Germany -- Personal Narratives
  Motion Pictures -- Germany, West

Browsing the stacks can help you evaluate the library's collection in a given field of study. The following call number ranges contain works relevant to German literature and German studies:

PF 3001-5999 German Language and Philology PT 1-80 German Literature: General History & Criticism PT 83-873 History of German Literature PT 881- 951 German Folk Literature PT 1100-1479 Collections of German Literature PT 1501-2688 Individual Authors & Works (by period) DD's German History

Search WorldCat, an online catalog for libraries throughout the world, to take your search beyond Gould Library.

Finding Periodical Articles

Periodicals often provide excellent sources of information. Articles in scholarly periodicals (academic journals) present current research in a field, while articles in popular periodicals (magazines and newspapers) reflect public opinion. Once you have located article citations in a database, index, or bibliography, perform a title search in Bridge using the exact title of the periodical. If Carleton and St. Olaf do not hold the journal, you may request the article through Interlibrary Loan.

Newspaper & Popular Articles

Lexis Nexis Academic
To search German language newspapers, click on "Guided News Search." In the first drop-down box, scroll to "Non-English Language News;" in the second, scroll to "German Language News." To view the list of newspapers and magazines searched, click on "Source List." Most articles are available full text; date range varies widely from title to title.

German Studies Web: Newspapers and Other News Sources
This portion of German Studies Web, a German Studies megasite, provides links to major German language newspapers and magazines; best to use when searching for very recent articles. DBI / Stadtbibliothek Köln Zeitschriften-Service
Formerly DBI-Link, this database contains over 80,000 citations to articles in the German popular press from the 1990s and 2000s. Note that the Zeitschriften-Service contains no full-text; you will need to request articles through Interlibrary Loan.

Scholarly Articles

MLA International Bibliography (1963-present)
The premier database for literary and cultural studies; provides citations to articles dealing with literature, literary criticism, folklore, language, and linguistics.

Historical Abstracts (1954-present)
Covers world history from 1450-present; provides citations to articles dealing with all aspects of history, including cultural and literary history. Use "Germany," "Germany, East," or "Germany, West" as subject headings.

Bibliographie der deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (1945-present)
An annual bibliography of citations to articles on German language and literature; organized by literary period. Web of Science
Search either the Social Science Citation Index (1969-present) or the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present) to locate journal articles that cite specific works.

Newspapers and Magazines to Browse

Focus: Das moderne Nachrichtenmagazin
Main Periodicals (1995-present) Der Spiegel
Main Periodicals (1963-present) Stern
Main Periodicals (1977-present) Die Zeit
Newspapers (current 3 months)

Academic Journals to Browse

Central European History
Main Periodicals (1968-present) German Life and Letters
Main Periodicals (2000-present); St. Olaf's Rolvaag Library (assorted volumes, 1950-present) German Studies Review
Main Periodicals (1984-present)
Tables of contents and abstracts are available at http://www.people.carleton.edu/~dprowe/GSR.index.html. The German Quarterly
Main Periodicals (1928-present); JSTOR (1928-1997) The Germanic Review
Main Periodicals (1937-present); ProQuest (1991-present) Germanistik
Main Periodicals (1961-present) Modern Austrian Literature
Main Periodicals (1987-present) Monatshefte
Main Periodicals (1946-present) New German Critique
Main Periodicals (1973-present); JSTOR (1973-1995) PMLA (Publications of the Modern Language Association)
Main Periodicals (1900-present); ProQuest (1988-2000); JSTOR (1889-1990)

Web Sites

The Web sites recommended below complement other research resources. German Studies Web
A metasite providing links to newspapers, German library catalogs, German reference tools, Internet research guides, and digitized texts and images. Projekt Gutenberg-DE
A digital library of German literature; may be searched by author. Retrospektive Digitalisierung wissenschaftlicher Rezensionsorgane und Literaturzeitschriften des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem deutschen Sprachraum
A full-text collection of 32 18th and 19th century German journals and magazines; the collection may be searched by author and title keyword; articles are reproduced in pdf format. Sophie: A Digital Library of Early German Women's Writing
A full-text collection of selected works by German women writers of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries; both German and English translated texts are available. Be advised that much of the site is still under construction. Yahoo! Deutschland
The German language version of the Yahoo! subject directory.