Research

Open Access and other useful resources from around the web.

Rather than individual titles, I have tried to focus on freely accessible collections that lead researchers to a variety of titles. If I have left something out, please contact me.

These lists, like this website and really, life in general, are a work in progress. Significant updates to the lists will be reflected in a corresponding blog post.

• Union Catalogs: Otherwise known as Group Catalogs, they allow people to search multiple library or institutional catalogs simultaneously. This streamlines the search process to show readers which locations own or hold specific items.

Tags for the items within lists currently focus on content or collection type (images, documents, etc.), provenance, and geographic coverage, rather than subjects of the materials.

Scope Note: Humanities (arts, culture, languages, history, politics, religion, etc.); governmental data & documents; scientific data & publications. The lists are by no means definitive and will be updated regularly. Anyone with questions or suggestions should feel free to contact me.

• Reference Resources: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Thesauruses, & Bibliographies: Freely available reference works, including language and subject dictionaries.

• Research Guides: Produced by libraries and institutions; some are collection guides — focusing on local holdings, while others are subject guides — describing topically relevant materials irrespective of their location.

• Databases & Digital Collections: Online repositories for digitized materials (like rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and maps) and current data and e-publications (such as journal articles), as well as historical materials that have been digitized.

Last updated on 6/20/2022

Where To Find an Editor, Literary Agent, Publisher, or Indexer

Information for navigating the publication process.

Directories

• Editors for Hire (ACES: The Society for Editing)

• EFA Directory of Members & Job List (Editorial Freelancers Association)

• Literary Agents (Association of American Literary Agents)*

• Publishers: A list of some publishers’ instructions for submitting a book proposal; list includes one Book Publishing Directory.
  Note on timelines: Compiling or preparing the index is part of the final production process; the index is prepared once the typeset page proofs are done.

• Indexer Locator (American Society for Indexing)

Advice for Finding a Literary Agent

This blog post by Jane Friedman reviews where to look, what to submit, and how to choose the best literary agent for you: How to Find a Literary Agent for Your Book

Guides

• This Substack post provides an annotated bibliography of blogs on book indexing:
  Book-Indexing Blogs

• How to write a literature review, by Purdue OWL: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/writing_a_literature_review.html

• Guide to copyright and the scholarly publication process: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/authorrights

• This link leads to a list of some publishers’ instructions for submitting a book proposal:
  Publishers & Book Proposal Instructions

• Interested in Open Access (OA) publication? https://guides.library.cornell.edu/openaccess/

• ORCID - What is it and does it apply to you?
  https://info.orcid.org/what-is-orcid/