In this part of SAFARI we are going to cover information resources for languages and linguistics. As with any subject it is difficult to describe every resource that may be of use. It will depend on what aspect you are interested in. English language spans a number of other subject disciplines. For example, you may want to look at resources for English literature.
Information about resources available to Open University students and links to them are found on the Open University Library website, by going to Online collections by subject and selecting Languages from the drop-down list. There are further sub-categories to choose from.
Specific resources are discussed in more detail below.
The electronic books page on the Open University Library site details the OU Library's e-books and e-books collections. You can also view selected listings of English language and linguistics e-books.
To find out about other books available in your subject area, you can search other library catalogues. These are listed on the Open University Library page "Other library catalogues".
There are an increasing number of electronic books and texts available on the internet. Some of these are available on sites such as Project Gutenberg or the Internet Public Library.
Databases are useful for finding articles on a topic. They enable you to search across a number of journal titles (and sometimes books and reports) in order to find information in your area of study. There are two main types of databases:
Some databases contain a mixture of both full text and bibliographic information. There are other databases which contain image resources or they are an enhanced version of a reference book.
You can find articles on English language topics using the following bibliographic databases:
You will find links to these databases on the Language databases page.
An increasing number of journals are available electronically through the Open University Library. We have selected some for English language and linguistics. These lists are only a selection. You are strongly advised to use the A-Z list of journals to browse for other titles. You can also search several journal titles at once, by subject keyword, using the electronic journal collections.
There are many sites on the internet where you will find information on English language. Some of the best available are included on the intute: arts and humanities, English studies gateway. The Library and module teams have worked closely to compile sets of resources relevant to English language modules at the Open University. If your module has a set of websites these will be available from your module website.
This subject is covered in more detail in Section 7.