"A Child's Garden of Verses," by Jessie Wilcox Smith, 1905. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Find Author Biographies and Literary Criticism
To do the searches shownbelow, it is recommended that you use the DUQSearch Advance Search. To get to the DUQSearch Advanced Search, Click the "Advanced" link below the Basic Search box on the Gumberg Library Homepage.
Finding Author Biographies
To find books on the lives of children's authors, go to the DUQSearch Advanced Catalog Search screen.
In the first search box type the author's name, followed by the word "biography." Then pull down the menu to the right of the search box and change it to "SU Subject Terms." Click Search to run your search.
Finding Literary Criticism on a Children's Author
As above, type the author's name in the first search box, followed by the word "criticism." Then change the menu to the right of the box to "SU Subject Terms." Click Search to run your search.
Finding Criticism on a Work of Children's Literature
On the DUQSearch Advanced Catalog Search screen, type the name of the work of children's literature you are interested in in the first search box and leave the menu to the right of the box set to "Select a Field (optional)." In the second search box type the author's name (the last name will do), then change the menu to the right to "SU Subject Terms." Click Search. This should take you to works of criticism on that work, if any such books are owned or accessible through the Gumberg Library.
How to Limit a Preset Search
If you click on one of the subject headings on the previous page and find too many books to look through (as you will with the subject "Children - Books and reading"), you will want to use the DUQSearch Advanced Catalog Search to limit your results to more precisely what you are looking for.
Llet's say you clicked on the preset search that retrieved all the books on the subject of "Children - Books and reading." That brings up over 800 books--Too many to look through--and you only want those that deal with "comprehension."
In the first search box at the top of the screen, you would see the preset search "SU Children books and reading," which brought up the big search result you want to narrow. Don't do anything with this. Just leave it as is. Then, in the second box, type the word "comprehension," and leave the menu to the righ tof the search box set to "Select a Field (optional)." Click Search to run the limited search.
