Search Omni to find books of criticism, biographies, bibliographies, concordances, literary glossaries, dictionaries, and encyclopedias on William Shakespeare.
You may search by keywords, author, title or subject headings.
Subject headings allow you to search for resources on a particular author or topic and are often more productive than keyword searches.
Keyword searches work best if you have multiple concepts or topics and need only a few books.
For a comprehensive subject search, search with subject headings as well as keywords.
Searching Omni
Start with a keyword search, but expect to revise it.
Keyword Searching TIPS
Search Technique |
What It Does |
quotation marks |
Searches for exact phrase |
Truncation * |
Searches for all forms of a word |
Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) |
Lets you broaden or narrow your search |
Do an Author search to find books by a literary author, e.g. William Shakespeare. Go to Advanced Search and enter:
Author/Creator is (exact) shakespeare william
Do a Subject search for find books about a literary author, e.g. William Shakespeare
Subject is (exact) shakespeare william
Start with the broad subject heading, Shakespeare William 1564-1616 and then enter the following the subheadings. Some examples:
For works about specific plays. do a subject search with the playwright's name and the title of the play. For example:
shakespeare william 1564-1615 king lear
Additional subject headings that can be useful include:
• English literature--Early modern,1500-1700
• English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
• English prose literature--Early modern, 1500-1700
• Globe Theatre (London, England: 1599-1644)
• Theaters--England--London
• Theaters--England--History
• Theater and society--England--History--17th century
When searching Omni for books, etc., use the facets located on the search results screen, to limit your search results. Or go to Advanced Search, to limit your search to Resource Type, e.g. Books & eBooks.
Useful subject headings for an overview of the historical period include:
England--Social conditions--17th century
England--Social life and customs--17th
century
Great Britain--History--Stuarts, 1603-
1714
Great Britain--History--Tudors, 1485-
1603
Great Britain--Politics and government--
1485-
Great Britain--Politics and government--
1558-1603
Great Britain--Politics and government--
1603-1625
Great Britain--Social life and customs--
16th century
Great Britain--Social life and customs--
17th century
Renaissance--England
Shakespeare William 1564-1616--
Contemporary England
Browsing the library shelves is another strategy for locating information on a topic.
Most books related to Shakespeare are located in the call number range PR2750-PS3088 on the 4th floor of Stauffer Library.
Use the following call numbers as a a guide.
Complete works: PR2752-2763
Sonnetts and Poems: PR2841-2848
Individual plays: PR2801-2839
Play is shelved first, followed by the criticism of the individual play
Other criticisms:
Shakespeare stage history: PR3091-3112
Shakespeare's characters: PR2989
Shakespeare general criticism: PR2965-
2979
Shakesepeare's comedies (criticism):
PR2981
Shakespeare's histories (criticism):
PR2982
Shakespeare's tragedies (criticism):
PR2983
Shakespeare's influence: PR2965-2971
Shakesepeare's political/social views:
PR3017-3024
Shakespeare and religion: PR3011-3012