James L. Harner

“ Books for an adult audience must be by a single author; those for children may contain the work of no more than four writers. Included are authors who were born in Australia and resident there for a substantial part of their lives or during their formative years as well as writers born overseas but now considered Australian or who resided in the country “and produced a work of creative literature reflecting their experiences.” Entries provide a full description of the first edition and location of copy examined and brief citations to selected later editions. ”

“ A bibliography of French-language novels published separately before 1901 by Canadian citizens or permanent residents and of selected scholarship and criticism through 1966. Entries are organized in three divisions: bibliographies, general biographical and critical works, and individual novelists. Under each author, novels are listed alphabetically, with editions, translations, and extracts in periodicals following in chronological order (with locations in Canadian libraries and the Library of Congress) . Concluding each author section is a selective list of studies. ”

“ The majority of the signed entries, which range from fewer than 100 to more than 2,000 words, are for individuals, but works, publishers, collectors, children’s literature, periodicals, libraries, films, relations with other national literatures, and topics of significance to New Zealand literature are included. Readable, informative, and reliable, Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature goes well beyond the typical Oxford Companion to treat many topics and writers for the first time and thus offers researchers a plethora of subjects worthy of fuller discussion. ”

“ A typical entry provides a bibliographical citation, notes (on content, scope, number of entries, and previous editions) , and location of at least one copy. Three indexes: authors; titles; subjects (with separate ones for English and French headings) . Concludes with a “short entry listing”—a list, by author or title of anonymous work, of all 7,375 entries—that merely wastes a substantial amount of paper and contributes to the unwieldy size of the volume. ”

“ A biographical dictionary, in English and Maori, of persons who “flourished” in New Zealand. Entrants are chosen for their eminence or representativeness (with due attention given to ethnic group, gender, region, and activity) or for balance within a volume (e.g., in vol. 1, 30% of the biographees are Maori and 20% are women) . The signed entries provide a basic biography and conclude with a selected bibliography of published and unpublished sources. Three indexes in vol. 1: occupations, activities, vocations, tribal leaders; tribes and hapu; persons (vol. 2 adds a regional index) . ”

“ A bibliography and finding list of English-language scholarly and literary journals published through mid-1977 in or about current and former Commonwealth countries (excluding the United Kingdom) . Journals are placed according to focus rather than country of publication, in divisions for general works, Africa, Australia, Canada, Caribbean, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, Mediterranean, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, South Asia, and former Commonwealth nations. Many are subdivided by region or genre. ”

“ An essential complement for English Canadian literature is Apollonia Steele, comp., Theses on English-Canadian Literature: A Bibliography of Research Produced in Canada and Elsewhere from 1903 Forward (Calgary: U of Calgary P, 1988; 505 pp.) , an author and subject list of baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral theses accepted by and in progress (as of early 1988) at Canadian, British, Italian, United States, and a few other European and Indian institutions. Coverage excludes pedagogy, folklore, and Canadian theater (as distinct from drama) . ”

“ Unpublished English-language diaries written by women are more fully covered in Kathryn Carter, Diaries in English by Women in Canada, 1753–1995: An Annotated Bibliography (Ottawa: Canadian Research Inst. for the Advancement of Women/Institut Canadien de Recherches sur les Femmes, 1997; 106 pp.; F. V. 4) . Annotations identify the location of the manuscript, describe in a sentence or two the subject matter, and cite published versions and studies of the diary. The lack of a subject index hampers access to the more than 500 entries. ”

“ Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online includes all entrants in the published volumes as well as selected biographies from forthcoming ones. The Keyword Search screen allows keyword searching of the full text and browsing by surname, geographic area, profession, or race; the Advanced Search screen allows searching by name, gender, date range of death, keywords, and—for some biographees—by geographic area, profession, or race (consult the respective help screens for details) . ”

“ Only a few entries are briefly annotated, principally with a list of authors discussed but sometimes with a note on content or an evaluative comment. Four indexes: persons; titles of works cited; subjects; regions. Authoritative in its selection of the most important scholarship and including numerous works omitted from the standard bibliographies and indexes in section G, Lindfors is the indispensable guide to the topic; however, users will wish for more extensive annotations by one of the foremost scholars of black African literature in English. ”

“ Guided Search allows users to combine fields for author, language, gender, cultural heritage, year and place of birth, title, subject, date, type, form, and genre; several fields have pull-down menus or a link to the thesaurus. Full Text Search is limited to works digitized by AustLit. Users can also search the thesaurus.
Users can restrict searches to several research subsets (listed under Research & Publications; some include independently produced databases) , including book history and print culture, children’s literature, drama, multicultural writers, and south Australia women writers. ”

“ Entries, based on information contributed by archives, individuals, and libraries, can be searched by keyword in basic Search; Advanced Search allows searching by keyword, contributor (name, type, and location) , resource type or medium, and date. In addition, searchers can browse five lists (click Explore Collections) : subjects, contributors, locations, people (individuals, families, and organizations) , and tags contributed by users of the site. A full entry includes title of collection; author of the documents; holder of the collection (with shelf list and contact information) ”

“ A database of archival collections housed in Canadian institutions. The Basic Search mode allows users to search by keyword anywhere or in the title, provenance, Archives Canada record number, or collection title fields. In Advanced Search, users can limit combined keyword searches of several additional fields (e.g., scope and content note, repository name) by province or territory. Search results (a maximum of 500) are returned in descending Archives Canada record number order but can be re-sorted by collection title; records can be saved to a list for e-mailing. ”

“ Separate signed essays examine fiction, poetry, drama, and translations; the humanities section now consists of individual signed reviews of critical and scholarly books by Canadian authors on a wide range of topics and national literatures. The early surveys include selective checklists of titles. Indexed by books reviewed. For the history of “Letters in Canada,” see W. J. Keith and B.-Z. Shek, “A Half-Century of UTQ,” University of Toronto Quarterly 50.1 (1980) : 146–54. Although selective in coverage, “Letters in Canada” is the best annual evaluative survey of books by Canadians. ”

“ Covers all aspects of Australian literary culture in about 3,000 entries on authors (including historians, critics, and journalists, but with very selective coverage of contemporary writers) , major works, literary and scholarly journals, awards, societies, movements, publishers, literary characters and types, cultural and scholarly organizations, Australian life and history, places, other literature-related topics, and foreign writers who visited the continent or had an impact on its literature. ”

“ At its demise ANB was published in four parts: a subject list organized by Dewey Decimal Classification (with full cataloging information for each entry) ; author, title, and series index; subject index; and list of periodicals. Both indexes cite classification rather than page. Once the fullest record of current Australian publications, ANB was absorbed by Libraries Australia (http://librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au/apps/kss [formerly Kinetica] ) as part of the Australian National Bibliographic Database.
ANB continues the Annual Catalogue of Australian Publications, [1936–60] , 25 vols. ”

“ As volumes are published, entries are incorporated into Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, which is adding portraits to entries, expanding the bibliographies, and providing hyperlinks. (Planned enhancements include links to digitized material, thematic essays, expanded bibliographies, an obituaries database, and “online research tools to track, enumerate and visualise social networks.”) Search offers simple keyword searches of personal names or the entire text. ”

“ Entries are organized alphabetically (in two sequences: titles of anonymous works; authors) in the following classified divisions—general surveys; theater history to 1900; twentieth-century theater; little theater; festivals; radio and television drama; architecture and facilities; stage design and lighting; stagecraft; biographies and criticism of actors, actresses, and playwrights; theater education; theater for young people; puppetry; periodicals; and theses and dissertations. A few entries are accompanied by one-sentence annotations. ”

“ The approximately 16,000 titles are organized alphabetically by author in two parts. Pt. 1 is meant to be a comprehensive list of literary works, with entries divided among sections for poetry, poetry and prose mixed, fiction, and drama. Pt. 2 is a selective list of books important as backgrounds to Canadian literature, with entries grouped by topics: biography, essays and speeches, local history and description, religion and morality, social history, scholarship and criticism on literature and the humanities, and travel and description. ”

“ The editors plan to make all entrants searchable by geography and profession or race, to add portraits to selected entries, and to provide links to sections of Library and Archives Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.ca) . Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online offers free access to a major resource.
DCB is a well-edited, authoritative, scholarly source that fully deserves the praise accorded it by reviewers and its rank among the great biographical dictionaries such as Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (M1425) and American National Biography (Q3378) ”

“ An appendix provides a chronological list of the journals that hosted Tabloid Story. Although the work is not comprehensive, especially for periodical fiction, and although much information is taken secondhand, Torre is the single best source for identifying Australian short stories and critical studies of them. ”

“ While the bulk of the entries (which inconsistently conclude with suggestions for further reading) are for individuals, topics not usually encountered in literary encyclopedias are also given their due, such as archives, book history, editors and editing, libraries, and publishing industry. Concludes with a chronology and three indexes: contributors; authors; persons and subjects not accorded separate entries. ”

“ Secondary works—accompanied by descriptive annotations—are classified by form: books, articles and parts of books, theses and dissertations, interviews, awards and honors, and selected reviews. Through vol. 3 an introduction to each author offers a cursory survey of criticism and a necessary discussion of limitations in coverage. Each author section is separately indexed by persons. Numerous reviewers have objected to the choice of major authors and to the poetry and prose division. ”

“ Researchers must also check the headings beginning “Indian” in the subject index to post-1980 volumes and in the online thesaurus.
New, Critical Writings on Commonwealth Literatures (R4380) .
YWES (G330) : Indian literature has been covered in the chapter African, Caribbean, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and Indian Literature in English since vol. 64 (for 1983) .
New Zealand Literature in English Works in section R: Other Literatures in English/General are important to research in New Zealand literature. ”

“ Genres Some works in section L: Genres are useful for research in Canadian literature.
Fiction Some works in section L: Genres/Fiction are useful for research in Canadian fiction.
Guides to Primary Works There is no adequate bibliography devoted solely to English Canadian fiction. Margery Fee and Ruth Cawker, Canadian Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography (Toronto: Martin, 1976; 170 pp.) , a selection aid for teachers, is too incomplete to be of much use. Until an adequate bibliography appears, researchers will have to make do with Watters, Checklist of Canadian Literature (R4620) . ”

“ An encyclopedia of genres, subjects, national literatures, and writers associated with the English-language literatures of Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, the Caribbean, East Africa, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saint Helena, Singapore, South Africa, South Central Africa, the South Pacific, Sri Lanka, and West Africa. ”