Library catalog searches take place online nowadays and can be done just as easily from home as at the library. Searching public or school library collections helps locate books and journals that will support literature research efforts. In addition, asking the librarian for assistance may elicit other resources the library may have to offer.
The Internet, another great resource, provides plenty of information at a literature researcher's fingertips. Many sites either offer subject-specific information or supply links to other sites that may be helpful. However, care must be taken because, along with the good sites, you will find a lot of equally bad sites with inaccurate or misleading information.
Databases and indexes list journal articles, symposium events, other research papers and reviews on the any research subject, which can be easily accessed. Bibliographies and Lists of Works Cited at the end of many books and research papers show the works that their authors used in their research. Consulting these lists affords literature researchers more reference sources.
Archival collections and primary sources (letters, diaries, interviews with people who were there) offer literature researchers firsthand information about the events that inspired the story in a piece of literature. The archival material may be rare books or books that are no longer in print, and so, are unavailable elsewhere.
Biographies, biographical dictionaries, and profiles (like "Who's Who") provide background information about major or minor characters in a piece of literature. They also may give contextual clues about the time period
General research volumes like dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and almanacs fill in other information that could give literature research more meaning. These works provide assistance with foreign languages as well as older, more colloquial terms with which the researcher may be unfamiliar. Encyclopedias may fill in historical and geographical information. Almanacs may also fill geographical information as well as regional monetary, language, religious and cultural details that could be pertinent to understanding during literature research.