2. Using HOLLIS for Literary Research
The HOLLIS catalog contains records for over 14 million items: books, journals, sound recordings, manuscripts, films, maps, government documents, and electronic resources held by various libraries at Harvard.
A general guide to using HOLLIS, with information on using "Your Account," and other features is available.
Searching for works of literature by an author
If you search Author (last name first), HOLLIS
finds your search terms in an alphabetical list of all authors
in the catalog.
Click the link from your writer's name to see a list of works by her/him,
in descending chronological order of publication. (HOLLIS occasionally
has multiple entries for variant forms of author names.) The results can
be re-sorted by title or author, as well.
With this approach, you will see authors' works in all forms (critical editions, collected works, musical adaptations, manuscript material, translations, etc.) in a single list.
This approach gives you an overview of the libraries holdings of material by your author.
Note When searching for the
works of William Shakespeare, John Milton, and other writers whose works
are heavily represented in the libraries' collections, note the following:
The catalog cannot sort retrievals of over 1,000 records. You can reduce
the number of records by using “Modify” to add terms or limits
and narrow your search, or begin your search in Expanded Search.
Searching for works about an author or his/her works
To find critical, biographical, or contextual information -- Search authors' names, or terms related to literary concepts or movements, genre and/or genre/period, or other topic using either Keywords or Subject beginning with.
Hint Keywords can be used to begin subject searches,
if you are uncertain of the subject heading for your topic. Use your
own words to locate records for relevant resources, then identify the
subject headings in the HOLLIS record that will lead to other useful
material.
Note that Keywords anywhere will, indeed, search anywhere in
the HOLLIS record, including contents notes and subject headings.
Searching Authors as Subjects
Choose "Subject beginning with..." and enter the author's name in last name/comma/first name. The entries for prolific or heavily discussed authors will include a range of subheadings will follow the general heading, for example:
- Bibliography
- Biography
- Characters
- Contributions in Criticism
- Correspondence
- Criticism and interpretation (very useful for finding general critcal discussion)
- Homes and haunts
- Influence
- Philosophy
- Knowledge-- Literature (the author's knowledge of a field)
- Language
- Political and social views
Also in this list will be headings for works devoted primarily to discussion of one particular title by that author.
Searching for other literary subjects (literary concepts/movements, genres, genres/periods):
If you do not know the official subject terms for your topic, begin with a keyword search.
You can combine periods and genres, for example: Keywords anywhere: 19th century and American and short stories, and use the records retrieved to identify the subject headings you need. Click the heading you want and the catalog will search it and retrieve all records for that heading. Or: Keywords anywhere: feminism and theory will retrieve records with various subject headings, including:
- Feminism and literature (may be subdivided by country)
- Literature--Women authors--History and criticism--Theory, etc.
- Feminist criticism
- Feminism
Finding Material by Form, Date, Library, or Language: Expanded Search
Use Expanded Search in the upper menu, to combine more than two search terms and/or to limit the search by format (visual for videos and DVDs, audio, maps, scores, etc.), language, library location and/or date of publication.This can help you locate poetry readings, filmed plays and film adaptations of works of literature, recorded interviews with writers, and other interesting material, including editions of works of an author published during a particular period of time.
Printing and Exporting HOLLIS Records:
Print/Save/Send and List allow you to select from a variety of formats to e-mail individual records or to create a set of records to print, save to disc, or to send. You can execute this command from an individual record or a list of records. HOLLIS records can be exported to EndNote or to RefWorks. Instructions are available in the EndNote guide and in the RefWorks guide.
