Press Room

Gale Leads the Way in Literature with New and Enhanced Award-Winning Literature Products

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., June 22, 2007 – Gale leads the way in literature with products designed to deliver definitive, essential and timely information created by experts and available nowhere else.  With enhancements and additions planned for Gale’s suite of literature products throughout 2007 and into 2008, including cross-searchability across Gale literature content, it will become even easier to provide trusted literature information to library visitors.

New features for 2007 include:

• Improved usability based on extensive research into end-user needs
• Cross-searching of literary criticism, literary works, author biographies, primary sources, work and topic overviews, literary citations, journal articles, multimedia and breaking news—now all in one place
• Publication search
• Enhanced title and keyword searching
• Simplified “tab” structure
• “How to Cite” feature
• Multiple options for sorting

“This is the biggest event in literature studies in many years and the result of one of the most extensive user studies ever undertaken in the reference industry,” said Gale literature publisher Jim Draper. “Thanks to new integrated search capabilities, users can search Literature Resource Center content – as well as other Gale literature content – from one streamlined interface.  Searches will yield results not only from Literature Resource Center, but from LitFinder, MLA International Bibliography and Gale Virtual Reference Library literary titles. By the end of 2007, nearly all of Gale’s Literature databases will be in this new cross-searchable environment,” Draper added.

 “One of Gale’s greatest strengths is its deep subject indexing. This new release takes greater advantage of Gale indexing to yield superior results for end-users. For library customers, this means less searching and a lot more high-grade finding. For students, this translates into an A on a paper or 100% on a test. For book lovers, this means a deeper understanding of the writer and her works.”

Literature Resource Center is the world’s most current, comprehensive and reliable online literature database, offering the broadest and most representative range of authors and critical views and providing more substantive biographies and full-text literature criticism than any other resource. 

LitFinder is Gale’s core repository of full-text literature.  As a standalone, full-text literature collection, LitFinder provides users with a wealth of full-text literary works and secondary sources that provide context to authors and their writing.  As a cross-searchable component of Gale’s Literature Solutions suite, it is the perfect complement to other Gale databases like Literature Resource Center, providing the most complete and well-grounded literature experience available.

MLA International Bibliography is the seminal bibliography in literature and the humanities, offering nearly 2 million citations to journal articles, books and dissertations from 1926 to the present.  Long cross-searchable with Literature Resource Center, the vast content in this influential bibliography is now also available for searching with any combination of Literature Resource Center, LitFinder and literature eBook titles from Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Literary Manuscripts Online: British Literature is a new collection that affords students and researchers a unique look inside literary history by providing key primary sources for the study of British literature.  Covering Anglo-Saxon times through the early twentieth century, this highly navigable, unique collection provides over a million digital images of author manuscripts, letters, journals and other content that virtually chart the development of literary movements and works.

Dictionary of Literary Biography Online is “hands-down the best overall literary reference work ever published, a proverbial diamond as big as the Ritz” (Library Journal, June 2006). This much-beloved resource provides authoritative, signed essays on authors and their works, across a broad range of time periods and genres. 

Twayne’s Authors Series is an ideal starting point for literary research such as research papers, special projects and presentations.  These titles offer in-depth critical introductions to the lives and works of writers, the history and influence of literary movements and the development of literary genres. 

Book Review Index Online provides quick access to reviews of books, periodicals, books on tape and electronic media representing a wide range of popular, academic and professional interests.  Book Review Index Online Plus includes Book Review Index Online, as well as more than 875,000 full-text reviews and full text via links to library holdings.

What Do I Read Next? is the most powerful reader advisory tool available.  It brings the expertise of specialists, critics and librarians together, gathering the best examples of internationally known fiction and nonfiction.  What Do I Read Next? includes more than 115,000 titles; 62,500 plot summaries; and 561 award titles, recommended reading lists and biographical information.

The Shakespeare Collection is a global, online environment for scholarly research that offers enriched functionality and entirely new possibilities for the study of Shakespeare and his works.  It is the subject’s most comprehensive and authoritative resource, bringing together general reference data, full-text scholarly periodicals, reprinted criticism, primary source material and the full-text annotated works from The Arden Shakespeare, the world’s most recognized scholarly edition.

Gale Virtual Reference Library literature titles are all cross-searchable with other Gale literature collections.

For more information, contact Vanessa Birch at vanessa.birch@cengage.com.

About Thomson Learning and Thomson Gale
Thomson Learning delivers state-of-the-art, tailored learning solutions for colleges, universities, professors, students, reference centers, government agencies, corporations and professionals around the world. These solutions are delivered through specialized content, applications and services that foster academic excellence, professional development and provide measurable advantage to its customers. Thomson Learning’s mission is to shape the future of global learning by delivering consistently better learning solutions for learners, instructors, and institutions. Thomson Gale (www.gale.com) serves the world's information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet. It is best known for the accuracy, breadth and convenience of its data, addressing all types of information needs – from homework help to health questions to business profiles – in a variety of formats – books and eBooks, databases and microfilm.