February 2021 Volume 1, Issue 1

Your Organization

Vanier College Library Guide: English THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

“At some time in our youth, we must all have wondered why there were so many languages in

the world and have felt that it would be much more sensible if everybody spoke the same

tongue; then there would be no need for us to learn foreign languages before we could make

ourselves understood to a person from another country. And since the idea that a person is a

foreigner and therefore different from ourselves rests very largely upon the fact that his

speech is unfamiliar, and in the ears of the uninitiated seems just a jumble of unintelligible

sounds, a universal language, it has often been felt, would go far towards establishing and

cementing friendship and understanding between the peoples of the earth.”

ROOTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

“The contribution of foreign languages on the one hand and the changes in the meaning of

words on the other are probably the most important and the most interesting ..., for it is to

these above all that the English language, as we know it today, owes its specific character. If

we were to compile a list of the more familiar words of foreign origin or derivation in English,

we should find that each of the tongues represented had made its contribution for the most

part to a particular side of our civilisation or our culture. For instance, most of the words for

the commoner natural features, as well as for the commoner forms of vegetable and animal

life, are of native origin. So are the names of the nearer family relationships and the simpler

kinds of tools and domestic utensils. Sea and ship, too, are English words, but most of our

nautical terms come from Greek, Danish or Dutch. French has given us words to describe

culinary processes and cooked foods, articles of clothing, articles of furniture and upholstery,

as well as a number of things connected with the households of the well-to-do; in fact, terms

which denote a certain degree of refinement and luxury which were unknown to the native

Saxons. From Latin came ecclesiastical and legal terminology, while a great part of the vocab-

ulary of learning is derived from the same source. Spanish, on the other hand, is chiefly re-

sponsible for terms which are connected directly or indirectly with trade and commerce,

while the Italian contribution has been very largely in the field of the arts. Of the words con-

nected with government, those concerned with the administrative side—politics, politician,

policy, police, etc.—come from the Greek polis (city), while those which refer to citizenship

and to the position of the individual under the administration—civil, civics, civilian, civiliza-

tion, etc.—are derived from the Latin civitas (state) and civis (citizen).”

Frederick T. Wood. Outline History of the English Language. Laxmi Publications, 2016. EB-

SCO

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Dictionaries .............................2

Books in Print ..........................2

eBooks ......................................3

Books on the WWW ................3

Encyclopedias ..........................4

Scholarly Articles .....................4

Audio Books & Films ...............5

MLA & APA Citation Formats..6

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Find Books to Read

Find Interesting Topics for Research

Find Scholarly Articles

Listen to Audio Books

Find Films to Watch

Find Citation Assistance

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Most of the books located in the physical library of Vanier College are in the English language. The library uses the Library of

Congress classification system to organize them. To learn more about this system, go to https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/

lcco/. The letters A-Z represent subjects and the letter P represents literature. Sub-classes narrow down each subject. For

example, P represents Language and Literature. PE is everything about the English language (history, grammar and dictionar-

ies). PR is British literature, while PS is literature from the United States and Canada. PY and PZ are young adult and children’s

books, and PN is for general literature such as criticism, poetry, drama, comic books and/or graphic novels.

To find books in the library, go to the catalogue.

To find books in the English language, conduct an Advanced Search and select the language you want (located at the bottom of

advanced search).

To find books written by a particular author, choose Author in the search box and type in their name. As an example, search for

the author Jane Austen. The results you receive will be only books written by her.

To find books written about her, choose Subject in the search box and type in her name. The books you receive will be literary

criticisms and/or an analysis of her writing.

If you know the Title of the book you want, such as Jane Austen’s “Emma,” select Title in the search box and type the title. In a

second box, type Jane Austen. You should receive the actual novel, as well as criticisms of that title. If you did not specify the

author, you would receive many books with the word “Emma.”

Once you have a list of books…

To find the actual book, you need to know how to find it. If you click on the title of one of the results you received, the Biblio-

graphic Record will appear. This record could help you when you need to write a bibliography, works cited or reference page

when you have to write a paper.

You need to make sure it is a book and not a film or a government document (also available from the library). You also need to

know if it is available or borrowed by another student. You also need to know where the book is located (3rd floor, 4th floor or

5th floor). Most important, you need to know the Call Number of the book to find it among the 80,000+ books in the library.

The call number corresponds to the Library of Congress subject headings. For example, the call # for Emma is PR 4034 E5

2013. Remember, PR is British literature, E is for the title and 2013 is the year in which this edition was published.

The books in the library are located in this way: A—DF (F300, 3rd floor); DG—Z (F400, 4th floor); Reference Books (F500, 5th

floor). There are guides at the end of every shelving unit to show you which books are in which aisle.

To borrow the books, bring your selections to the Circulation Desk on the 3rd floor (first floor of the library) and give the staff

member your Vanier College ID (you must have your ID with you). You can borrow the regular books for two weeks and renew

them for two more weeks by signing into the library catalogue. Reserve books can be borrowed for two or twenty-four hours, or

for three or seven days. Please return the books on time because we charge a fee for late returns.

THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY

The Vanier College Library subscribes to

the Oxford English Dictionary Online

(OED), the largest dictionary of the Eng-

lish language. If the library had it in print,

there would be many volumes. To access

the dictionary, click on the OED icon on

the front of the library page.

Once there, you can search for any words

in English over the last 1,000 years. It

also includes a thesaurus. If you are read-

ing a book or writing a paper, this diction-

ary is the best one to use. It is available

24/7 with your Omnivox username and

password.

The library also has a table (located near

the Circulation Desk) filled with dictionar-

ies in print that you can borrow. There

are other dictionaries and English gram-

mar books in the lending collection that

you can take home for two weeks. You can

find them by searching in the library cata-

logue.

Another dictionary provided to you is the

Merriam Webster Dictionary, accessible

from the Encyclopedia Britannica data-

base. (under E on the database list). This

encyclopedia also offers biographies ,

primary sources and relevant Web pages.

BORROWING BOOKS WINTER 2021

Since the physical collection of books is temporarily inaccessible, we take the books off the shelves for you. All you have to do is go to the Circulation Desk on the 3rd floor of the F Building, show your ID and the books will be loaned to you. Here are the directions:

1. Sign into KOHA and search for your book(s).

2. If they are available and you want to borrow them, place a HOLD.

3. Confirm hold to complete the request.

4. You will receive an email when your books are ready to borrow (usually a 24-hour wait).

5. Pick them up at the library cir-culation desk (F300) within three days of receiving the message.

6. You must have a valid Vanier ID.

7. Don’t forget to fill out the Covid

Form on Octopus before coming to

the college.

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EBOOKS (ELECTRONIC BOOKS)

The Vanier College Library holds subscriptions to a number of databases (online re-

sources), including eBooks. To explore the various collections provided by outside com-

panies such as EBSCO, Gale, ScienceDirect and Overdrive, go to our search page. For

EBSCO or any database, click on the icon and then type in your Omnivox username and

password to authenticate as a Vanier community member.

For EBSCO, you will receive a list of all their databases. Click only on eBook Academic

Collection (Ebscohost). Anything you search will be a full-text book. There are not very

many literary works, but you will find some older ones that are in the public domain (no

copyright). If you are writing an essay or research paper, books are great resources be-

cause someone has already conducted the research and they are edited by experts.

Gale eBooks are mostly reference books, but they are useful for learning general infor-

mation about a topic, or for writing your introduction and conclusion. Teachers will

sometimes tell you not to use reference books for the requirements of a paper or essay,

but it is still all right to consult them for ideas.

Overdrive is a database of mostly literary works online related to books teachers have

assigned. Browse through the titles, click on one you want to borrow. Your Vanier Col-

lege Omnivox username and password is your “library card.” If you don’t see a book you

would like to read, contact a librarian to request it.

ScienceDirect also has books, but they are given to you chapter by chapter. Conduct an

Advanced Search (right) and type in your topic. Click on “Show all fields.” Click on Book

chapters. The results will be only from books.

BOOKS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB (INTERNET)

Although books can be found on

the World Wide Web through the

Internet, many of them are illegal

and may not stay where you found

them. In addition, they could be

harmful to your computer. There

are a few Web sites where you can

find books and rely on their con-

tent.

The first (and perhaps oldest) is :

Project Gutenburg

(Gutenberg.org) with over 60,000

books in the public domain (no

copyright).

Next is the Internet Archive

(archive.org) with a collection of

over six million books in the Eng-

lish language. It also includes

films, music and news footage. A

project to digitize Canadian con-

tent is making great progress. You

can also access it as the Open

Library (openlibrary.org)

The next best place to find books

online are…. your worldwide li-

braries. For example, if you have

a library card for the city of Mon-

treal, you will have access to their

eBooks with your username and

password (bibliomontreal.com/

numerique/). The same goes for

Quebec’s Bibliothèque nationale

(banq.qc.ca).

In addition, the Library of Con-

gress in the United States has

digital collections (www.loc.gov/

collections).

The British Library (www.bl.uk/

learning/online-resources) is one

of the largest libraries in the

world.

Berthe Morisot, European; French, 1841 - 1895, (artist),. Reading, La Lecture. 1873. Artstor,

proxy4.vaniercollege.qc.ca:2398/asset/AMICO_CL_103800189

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HOW TO FIND A TOPIC

If you don’t have a topic for your research

paper or essay, there are several places

you can go to find some ideas. The first

place could be the database, GALE Oppos-

ing Viewpoints. Once you sign in using

your Omnivox username and password,

you will see a featured topic. To the upper

right, there should be an option to Browse

Issues. Click on it and there will be a list

in alphabetical order of contemporary

topics relevant to North America. When

you choose a category, articles, images,

videos, statistics and web sites are includ-

ed to better understand the issues sur-

rounding it.

GALE’s Global Issues does something

similar, although the topics include

countries around the world. It is also

possible to type in a country to learn more

about the issues that concern it. At the

end of every article or image is an option

to choose a citation (MLA, APA, Chicago,

etc.).

Another way to find a topic is to look in

the library catalogue. The carousel of new

books displays the newest additions to the

library collection. As well, typing in the

year 2020 or 2021 should bring up most of

the new books. To find subject headings,

or topics, click on the title of a book that is

interesting. The subject(s) included in the

bibliographic records could be used in

future searches in the library’s databases.

SCHOLARLY ARTICLES

JSTOR (Find it here under J) is probably the most useful database for English when con-

ducting literary reviews or searching for scholarly information about literature. The best

search strategy to use is to conduct an Advanced Search. This gives you the option to

increase the number of keywords, choose between articles, reviews, books and research

reports; limit the dates (articles begin in the 18oos and include 2021), and select the disci-

pline under which you hope to find articles. For example, if you are looking for infor-

mation about the book Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, you could find older articles

that discuss the book by selecting the years 1900—1950. If you wanted to search for the

topic of feminists in literature, you could select the Feminist and Women’s Studies disci-

pline.

EBSCO databases are the more popu-

lar resources for the Vanier College

Library, but there many more to con-

sider. To access the collection, go to

the Library homepage and click on the

EBSCO icon. Type in your Omnivox

username and password. You will

then see the list of database subscrip-

tions. If you are just beginning your

research, you could choose to search

all their databases at the same time.

You could uncheck eBooks if you are

only looking for scholarly articles.

You could search each database sepa-

rately if you are looking for a narrow

topic about psychology (Psychology

and Behavioral Sciences...) or business

(Business Source Elite).

When conducting a search in EBSCO,

you must click the full-text box so you

can read the articles in PDF. To find

scholarly articles, you must also click

the scholarly or peer-reviewed boxes.

In addition, try to make your search

terms simple; place each term in its

own box, and try different keywords

(women, females, girls, feminists), if

you don’t receive satisfactory results.

ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA

LITERARY REVIEWS (ARTICLES)

The Encyclopedia Britannica e-version (find it here under E) gives you access to articles,

images & videos, and biographies. It includes primary sources and links you to Web pag-

es outside of its context. You can choose an historic event, an author from any century or

an idea. The articles can be very short or long. The videos demonstrate what you may

look up in a print encyclopedia. For instance, you can watch lava flow out of a volcano or

hear the birds in an Arizona desert. You can also watch the dictator Adolf Hitler take

power over Germany with historic footage. It is possible to watch religious ceremonies to

better understand other cultures. Primary sources include listening to US presidents’

inaugural addresses and/or reading the Egyptian Book of the Dead. As mentioned previ-

ously in this guide, the Webster dictionary is available through this database.

4

“Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true.” Langston Hughes, Theme for English B

NAXOS Spoken Word Library (find it here under N) includes over 11,000 books in English. You can

listen to the book while reading the text (book icon will show if available). There is access to the

Cambridge Dictionary in case you need to look up the definition of a word. Many well-known au-

thors are featured. Shakespeare’s plays, poetry and ancient Greek, Roman and Persian texts are

included. Here are some well-known titles:

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Emma by Jane Austen Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

Giovanna’s Room by James Baldwin The Poetry of Nickki Giovanni

Stories by Edgar Allan Poe Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Criterion on Demand is a film database

that includes literary adaptations* of nov-

els. Go to Criterion on the database list

and type in your Omnivox username and

password. Here are some titles:

Life of Pi

Love in the Time of Cholera

The Namesake

Angela’s Ashes

Emma

Amistad

Hamlet

The English Patient

Malcolm X

The Outsiders

The Great Gatsby

Blade Runner

*Titles subject to change.

The Library also provides access to other

feature films and documentaries through

several databases and streaming compa-

nies. The book Reading and writing a

screenplay: Fiction, documentary and

new media, (PN 1996 R3313 2019)

demonstrates how films adhere to the

English language. In addition, the book

The documentary filmmaking master

class: Tell your story from concept to

distribution (PN 1995.9 D6 C4638 2019)

will help you organize your thoughts onto

a screen. The following film databases

and streaming companies are accessible

through the Library database list (see URL

above):

Audio Cine

Curio

National Film Board of Canada

Through the Vanier Library Catalog:

Alexander Street

Films on Demand

Kanopy

AUDIO BOOKS (NAXOS SPOKEN WORD LIBRARY

LITERARY ADAPTATIONS (FILMS) CRITERION ON DEMAND

5

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

“English is undoubtably one of the

harder languages to learn. Full of

nuances, unexpected pronunciation,

odd rules and infuriating exceptions

to rules, it takes dedication and perse-

verance to reach a good level of fluen-

cy.” (oxford-royale.com)

People often think that books are no

longer necessary and yet the Vanier

College library continues to be filled

with thousands of books, especially in

the English language. As well, hu-

mans continue to write them. Every

day, you read on your phones, you

read signs in the stores and while

driving or walking. You will need to

read and comprehend work-related

assignments. Therefore, it is extreme-

ly important to continue to perfect

your skills. English courses in CE-

GEPs encourage you to improve your

reading, writing and critical thinking.

www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/english/

MLA AND APA CITATION FORMATS

The Original book from the original Modern Language Association: The MLA Handbook (8th

Edition) Ref. LB 2369 G53 2016. This book is the one and only source that is correct. A new

edition is coming out April 2021.

Their Web page (with guides) https://style.mla.org/works-cited/citations-by-format/

The original book from the American Psychological Association: Publication Manual of the

American Psychological Association (Ref. BF 76.7 P83 2020)

Their Web page with guides: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/

examples

Databases provide citations: Although all our databases provide citations to use

within your papers and bibliographies, many of them are incorrect. Always consult the MLA

Handbook and APA Publication. Contact a librarian to ask questions and we will consult the

books.

The Purdue University Writing Lab Purdue university librarians and writing specialists

provide guides for their faculty and students and we have received permission to give you the

links.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/

mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html

Vanier College Library

821 Avenue Sainte-Croix Montreal, Quebec H4L 3X9 Canada

514.744.7500 ext. 7439

library@vaniercollege.qc.ca

www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/

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