SLAV 35 (Weld): Searching MLA International Bibliography

The MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics.

Search the database through the link below.  You will be prompted to log into the proxy server if you are off campus.  Use your UCSBnet ID and password to log in.

Search Tips: 

• Divide your research topic into different concepts.  For example, one concept would be the author you want to study.  Another concept could be the title of the work, a theme found in the work, or just "short stories".  Once you have at least two concepts, you are ready to search the database.

• Use the "advanced search" so that you get multiple lines in which to enter your search terms.  Use different lines in the search box for different concepts.  Put synonyms in the same line, but in different boxes.

• Keep it simple.  If you put too many terms in your search you won't find anything.  If that happens, redo your search using fewer terms.

• The sample search strategies in the boxes below will show you how to do different types of searches in the database.

The system will look for citations which include the terms from each row of your search.  When you look at the search results you will see your search terms are highlighted.

• After you run your search, use the "Limit To:" options at the left of the results and click on the box that says "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals".  This will limit your results to just scholarly articles.
• I do not recommend using the "Limit To: Linked Full Text" checkbox.  This might remove some results for which we actually do have access online. 
• Look through the records and decide which of the articles you want to find.  See the "Finding the Articles" tab of this guide to learn how to get to the actual article from a citation in the database if you do not see a PDF link in the record.
• The sample search strategies below will show you how to do different types of searches in the database.

When searching on an author and the title of a work, put the author and the title on separate lines of the search.  Read the tip below the image to learn more about the complications of searching on Russian authors in English.

Search Tip:  There are multiple ways to transliterate a Russian name from the Cyrillic alphabet (used in Russian) to the Latin alphabet (used in English).  As a result, one author's name can have different spellings in English.  Zamyatin is sometimes spelled Zamiatin, so you can enter both spellings with an "OR" in-between to find articles that use either spelling. 

If you are unsure what other spellings to use, try searching on the version you know.  Find the record for one article in the database and look at how the author's name is spelled in the subject terms.  Then revise your search to add the second spelling in the same line using the word "OR" between the variant spellings.

To find articles on a particular theme in the works of an author, you want to build a search that includes both the author's name and words that describe the theme.  Put the author's name on one line, and the descriptors for the theme on a second line.  You can use synonyms on the same line by combining them with "OR" as in the example below.  Read the search tip below the box for an explanation of the asterisks (*).

Search Tip:  An article on this theme could use several different words to describe this concept.  Nabokov was a Russian emigre, but an American immigrant.  By using both terms with an "OR" we will get either one.  Plus, by using the asterisk (*) to truncate the word, we will get variant words that start with the same letters like emigre, emigration, immigrant, immigration, etc.

To find articles about the short stories of a particular author:

Search Tip:  When searching for works about a particular author, put the author's last name in one line of the search and the genre in another line.

If you have difficulty finding full text for articles, you might want to try searching in JSTOR: