How to Find Items in the Database

The OEN Bibliography Database can be searched from the Search page in three different ways or any combination thereof:

Browse Subjects allows you to survey all entries in a given category. Clicking on a word in the list of subject headings brings up a list of subheadings; the symbol > after a subheading indicates that there are further subcategories below it, e.g. Literature > prose > Ælfric > homilies. You can begin browsing at any level of the hierarchy. This is a good option is you wish to quickly get a sense of recent work on a given topic, region, event, or individual, or gain an overview of scholarship on a broad topic.

Keyword Searching allows free-form multiple-keyword searches across most fields of all records, with AND, OR, and NOT conditions. This allows you to limit your search in specific ways (e.g., items on the OE Gospels that are not by Roy Liuzza, items that mention both Ælfric and the Vercelli Homilies, items dealing with gender and Anglo-Saxon law, or items that discuss auxiliary verbs in Cynewulf’s poetry).

Advanced Search Options are especially useful for finding works by an individual author or items in a particular journal, but can also be used for any number of other searches with specific limitations: finding all facsimiles, all editions published in Italian during the 1990s, etc. Because it allows you to search by authors or journal title, it is also the only way to access reviews as individual items (otherwise these appear in the [More] window of the work reviewed).

Results can be viewed in more detail by clicking on the word [More] next to the item. Results can also be saved, and your list of saved items can be printed, saved to disk, or sent via email.