The Trexler Library: Muhlenberg College

Francophone Cultures

Need help with your research? Contact:

Kelly Cannon
Humanities & Business Librarian
phone: x3602
email: kcannon@muhlenberg.edu
IM (AIM, Yahoo, MSN): refcannon
Reference desk IM: talktotrexler

General and French-language search engines

Google  (http://www.google.com)
Google France (http://www.google.fr)
Yahoo! France (http://fr.yahoo.com/)--includes a directory

Selective search engines

Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org/)
U.S. based

Intute (http://www.intute.ac.uk/)
U.K. search engine

Online reference works

Wikipedia: L'encyclopedie libre (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accueil)
Great for topic-narrowing. Less useful as an authoritative source, as the editing process is open to anyone.

Artfl Project (http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=frengdict)
A French-English dictionary with examples, hosted by the University of Chicago.

Collins French Dictionary (http://0-www.credoreference.com.library.muhlenberg.edu/vol/503)
Received by library subscription.

Books

Trexler Library Catalog
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library) > Catalog.
Catalog of all books and documents in Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College.

WorldCat ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Library Catalogs > WorldCat
Catalog of books and documents in libraries throughout the world. Watch especially for the AREA LIBRARIES designation.

Anthropology Plus
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
A good database for journal articles from anthropology, many in French. Use interlibrary loan as needed.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com)
A web crawler that looks for content it identifies as "scholarly." Emphasis is on books and journal articles. Intended as a "federated search" to search across disciplines (weighted toward sciences and social sciences). Not always full text. Check our Journal Locator (see above) to see if Muhlenberg has access to the full text.

LexisNexis Academic
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
A good starting place for French-language news.

News and Newspapers Online (http://library.uncg.edu/news/)
A portal to newspapers worldwide.

Sociological Abstracts
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
A good database for journal articles from sociology, many in French. Use interlibrary loan as needed.

getting to the full text. . .

Once you have found the citation of a journal article you're interested in, click on the Get It link found next to the citation, or run a journal title search in Trexler Library's catalog. NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > catalog.

articles via interlibrary loan. . .

Journal articles not found in Trexler Library can be ordered on interlibrary loan.
NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > Interlibrary Loan

Can I search all the library databases and catalog together, in one search?

Most of the databases and the library catalog can be searched together in a new library search engine called Search Central found on the Trexler Library website. Most useful when working with narrow topics where you need everything that's available.  Several search features are missing from the original databases, like relevance, and language and peer review limiters.

Citing sources

For tips on citing print and electronic sources, visit Trexler Library's Citation Guides for Print and Electronic Resources. NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Citation Guides.

For automated citation, try the shareware Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/).

© Muhlenberg College
Last modified: 2 August 2010