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Spotlight on: ProQuest One Literature

ProQuest One Literature (formerly Literature Online - LION) is one of the library’s most comprehensive and diverse resources for researching and studying literature and its related subjects. It comprises one of the most comprehensive collections of primary texts, e-books, reference sources, journal criticism, dissertations, and more.

It covers all literary periods with authors from 60+ nations, including the ProQuest Black Writing Collection, and the World Literature Collection, as well as unique content through 150,000 diverse primary texts from less well known authors.

Searching ProQuest One Literature

A basic search is the simplest way to find what you are looking for. It will retrieve results from all types of content. To streamline your search, use the tabs above the search box for:

• Criticism: Scholarly articles, reviews, books and dissertations.
• Primary texts: original literary works of poetry, drama and prose. You can also specify poetry, drama and prose separately.
• Reference works: encyclopaedias, companions, dictionaries, biographies and study guides.
• Authors:  by name, literary movement or period.

The ‘All content types’ tab also includes the option to search by audio & video, book reviews, dissertations, and secondary sources.

The results

Like most academic databases, ProQuest One Literature provides a filter on the left-hand side of the results page to sort and limit your results, by relevance/date, full-text & peer reviewed, content type, publication date, etc.

When searching by author, movement or a literary collection, where available ProQuest One Literature pulls together related primary texts, audio & video, relevant criticism and reference works, other authors from the same literary movements, as well as dissertations & theses. Printing, emailing and linking options are available for each article.

Browsing ProQuest One Literature 

Browsing is a really useful way to  get a quick overview of the contents of the database. 

You can find the Browse option via the top left-hand menu on the homepage. From here, the literature content is split into four categories:

• Authors: find authors by name, time period or literary movement.
• Works: browse for original works of poetry, drama, and prose. 
• Movements: explore literary movements and related authors.
• Study Guides: get help with in depth study materials.

Additional Support

For more information, ProQuest have created this introductory video.

If you have any questions about the new platform or would like some training, please email library@roehampton.ac.uk.