In the study of humanities and literature, there are a lot of standout databases. MLA International Bibliography, ProQuest Language and Literature, and JSTOR are all great databases that any English or humanities student is likely to have used. But there’s one newcomer amongst them that might be particularly useful to you as final papers and projects come due this semester. The Project MUSE Humanities Collection – provided jointly by the School of Humanities and Social Science and the Library – offers hundreds of thousands of articles and ebooks in topic areas across the humanities, from Creative Writing to History to Literature. There’s a strong international focus, too. And unlike most databases, it focuses on journals published by university presses and scholarly societies – which, naturally, are often the most academic sources you could choose. A lot of this content can’t be found anywhere else.

Project MUSE is simple to navigate, with an interface that will be easy to use for anyone familiar with our other databases. You search using standard Boolean logic (MUSE uses ALL, ANY, and NONE in their dropdown menus, and the more familiar AND, OR, and NOT in the search blank itself), quote marks around exact phrases, and asterisks as wildcard symbols. You can limit by date, language, and content type. You can even generate an MLA, APA, or Chicago style citation for a document from the menu on the right (as always, be sure to proofread!).

This year, your humanities papers and projects will be even better with the reinforcement of Project MUSE. Try it out and see how much more power is at your fingertips! The full list of titles IU East now has access to through Project MUSE can be found here. And all of our humanities databases dealing with the study of literature or English can be found here.

If you have any questions about this incredible new database, ask us at iueref@iue.edu!