Libraries & online resources available during COVID-19
The UMN Libraries spaces are different due to COVID-19 AND we are here to help with your research online!
Studying at the Libraries during Covid-19
Four of our largest libraries are open - Wilson Library (west bank), Walter Library Health Sciences Library (east bank), and Magrath Library (St. Paul). These spaces are open for current U of M students with U Cards. Per University guidelines, masks are required. We have reconfigured furniture and are requiring physical distancing with one student per table. You can reserve a study room - one person per room. The coffee shops in Wilson and Walter are closed. Read through our FAQs for more details on visiting.
Getting physical materials from the Libraries
If you know the item you are looking for, search by title or author or search by your keywords in Libraries search. You can go to our open libraries to find your items or browse the stacks. Or sign in to Libraries search and place a “get it” request. You can pick up items at one of our four open buildings — Wilson Library, Walter Library, Health Science Libraries, and Magrath Library — or have them delivered to your office, home, or residence hall. You can also request to have part of a book or physical item scanned and we will send it electronically with our Digital Delivery service. Read through our FAQs including details on checking out and returning materials.
- Online library resources and services for students during COVID-19You can connect virtually to our libraries, librarians and staff and get millions of online books and many services and resources online.
Get research help online! Schedule an online consultation!
Help isn’t available in our spaces this semester, instead use Chat with a librarian 24/7, chedule an online consultation with Brian, your librarian, or schedule a 30 minute virtual appointment with a Peer Research Consultant (a.k.a. peer tutor for library research).
How to Analyze Film
A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films by
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780520958760Publication Date: 2014Designed to be used by readers at many levels of knowledge, this book moves systematically through the elements that make up most films, focusing on aspects of the art of cinema that are common across history and national cinemas. From form and narrative to mise-en-scène and cinematography to editing and sound, Robert Spadoni introduces and explains the principles and conventions of film in engaging, straightforward language. In addition to illustrating film techniques with almost 200 images--most of them in color--the book explains ways to find patterns and meaning in films through such concepts as motifs, development, and motivation.Film Studies by
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780231142922Publication Date: 2010Ed Sikov builds a step-by-step curriculum for the appreciation of all types of narrative cinema, detailing the essential elements of film form and systematically training the spectator to be an active reader and critic. Sikov primes the eye and mind in the special techniques of film analysis. His description of mise-en-scene helps readers grasp the significance of montage, which in turn reveals the importance of a director's use of camera movement. He treats a number of fundamental factors in filmmaking, including editing, composition, lighting, the use of color and sound, and narrative.A Dictionary of Film Studies by
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780199587261Publication Date: 2012Written by experts in the field, this dictionary covers all aspects of film studies, including terms, concepts, debates, and movements in film theory and criticism, national, international and transnational cinemas, film history, film movements and genres, film industry organizations andpractices, and key technical terms and concepts in 500 detailed entries.Film Art: An Introduction by
Various editions. Click on link for call numbers and availabilty.
Scholarly Articles, Background Information, and Reference
- Academic Search PremierA great place to start your research on any topic, search multidisciplinary, scholarly research articles. This database provides access to scholarly and peer reviewed journals, popular magazines and other resources. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals DatabaseInternational Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) inlcudes coverage of hundreds of the world's foremost academic and popular film journals right up to the present day. Many of these key titles are available here in full text including complete runs.
- Film and Television Literature Index with Full-TextSearch articles on film and television studies' topics including theory, preservation, restoration, writing, production, cinematography, reviews from "Variety" back to 1914 and more.
- Gale EbooksSearch encyclopedias and reference books from various publishers in many subjects, including art, biography, business, cultural studies, education, the environment, history, religion, science, and social science.
- MLA International BibliographyUse the MLA International Bibliography to find scholarly books and articles on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. This index has been compiled by the Modern Language Association of America since 1926.
- Oxford Reference OnlineContains 100 language and subject dictionaries and other reference works, and searches across these resources. Limited to 5 simultaneous users.
Books on History of German Film
A Critical History of German Film by
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781571134684Publication Date: 2017-03-10A history of German film dealing with individual films as works of art has long been needed. Existing histories tend to treat cinema as an economic rather than an aesthetic phenomenon; earlier surveys that do engage with individual films do not include films of recent decades. This book treats representative films from the beginnings of German film to the present.A Companion to German Cinema by
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781444345575Publication Date: 2011A Companion to German Cinema offers a wide-ranging collection of essays demonstrating state-of-play scholarship on German cinema at a time during which cinema studies as well as German cinema have once again begun to flourish. Offers a careful combination of theoretical rigor, conceptual accessibility, and intellectual inclusiveness Includes essays by well-known writers as well as up-and-coming scholars who take innovative critical approaches to both time-honored and emergent areas in the field, especially regarding race, gender, sexuality, and (trans)nationalism. Distinctive for its contemporary relevance, reorienting the field to the global twenty-first century. Fills critical gaps in the extant scholarship, opening the field onto new terrains of critical engagement.Historical Dictionary of German Cinema by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 R417 2008 (Wilson)ISBN: 9780810856233Publication Date: 2008The Historical Dictionary of German Cinema covers mainstream, alternative, and experimental film from 1895 to the present through a chronology, introductory essay, appendix of the 100 most significant German films, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on directors, actors, films, cinematographers, composers, producers, and major historical events that greatly affected the direction and development of German cinema. The book's broad canvas will lead students and scholars of cinema to appreciate the complex nature of German film.The Cinema of Germany by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 C56 2012ISBN: 9781905674909Publication Date: 2012This volume tells the story of the cinema of Germany in 24 essays, each concerning an individual film, in a fresh and concise way. It describes a 'national' film industry which successfully met the demand of a 'national' audience from the 1910s to the 1960s. The book represents this system by focusing on films which were very popular with contemporary German audiences such as Metropolis (1927), Three from the Filling Station (1930), The Great Love (1942), The Heath is Green (1951) and The Treasure of Silver Lake (1962).A New History of German Cinema by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 N485 2012ISBN: 9781571134905Publication Date: 2012This dynamic, event-centered anthology offers a new understanding of the hundred-year history of German-language film, from the earliest days of the Kintopp to contemporary productions like The Lives of Others. Each of the more than eighty essays takes a key date as its starting point and explores its significance for German film history, pursuing its relationship with its social, political, and aesthetic moment. While the essays offer ample temporal and topical spread, this book emphasizes the juxtaposition of famous and unknown stories, granting attention to a wide range of cinematic events.
Books on German Film in the Weimar Republic & Third Reich
From Caligari to Hitler - A Psychological History of the German Film by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 K7 2004ISBN: 0691115184Publication Date: 2004A landmark, now classic, study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic, From Caligari to Hitler was first published by Princeton University Press in 1947. Siegfried Kracauer--a prominent German film critic and member of Walter Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's intellectual circle--broke new ground in exploring the connections between film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer's pioneering book, which examines German history from 1921 to 1933 in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel, has never gone out of print.The Triumph of Propaganda by
Call Number: PN1995.9.N36 H6413 1996ISBN: 1571810668Publication Date: 1996The Nazis saw film as a major vehicle for both indoctrination and escapist pacification of the "masses"; in fact, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels tried to create a German counter-Hollywood. This highly acclaimed study, by one of Germany's leading commentators and authors on cultural policy, analyses the pictorial and spoken language of the various film genres in the Third Reich, including news reels, documentaries, feature and "cultural" films. It shows how a powerful and sinister propaganda machine emerged which, by deploying a wide range of psychological techniques, exerted a strong fascination on the masses. These methods were so successful that they continue to serve as models for totalitarian régimes to this day.Weimar Cinema and After by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 E58 2000ISBN: 0415012341Publication Date: 2000German cinema of the 1920s is still regarded as one of the 'golden ages' of world cinema. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Dr Mabuse the Gambler, Nosferatu, Metropolis, Pandora's Box and The Blue Angel have long been canonised as classics, but they are also among the key films defining an image of Germany as a nation uneasy with itself. The work of directors like Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau and G.W. Pabst, which having apparently announced the horrors of fascism, while testifying to the traumas of a defeated nation, still casts a long shadow over cinema in Germany, leaving film history and political history permanently intertwined.
Books on Postwar German Cinema
New German Cinema: a History by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 E57 1989ISBN: 081351391XPublication Date: 1989The simultaneous international success in the 1970s of such filmmakers as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders led critics to talk of a 'New German Cinema'.East German Cinema: DEFA and film history by
Call Number: PN1999.D4 H45 2013ISBN: 9781137322302Publication Date: 2013East Germany's film monopoly, Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, produced a films ranging beyond simple propaganda to westerns, musicals, and children's films, among others. This book equips scholars with the historical background to understand East German cinema and guides the readers through the DEFA archive via examinations of twelve films.
Books on Cinema in Unified Germany
The collapse of the conventional : German film and its politics at the turn of the twenty-first century by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 C645 2010ISBN: 9780814333778Publication Date: 2010While difficult questions of history, culture, and politics figured less prominently in the lighter cinematic fare of the 1980s and 1990s, German filmmakers have recaptured the world's attention since the turn of the millennium with vital, dynamic, and engaged works.German cinema : since unification by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 G47 2006ISBN: 0826491065Publication Date: 2006Offering a survey of trends in German cinema since unification, this title highlights German film's interventions in contemporary social, political and historical debates, including questions of nationality, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.New Directions in German Cinema by
Call Number: PN1993.5.G3 N49 2011ISBN: 9781848859081Publication Date: 2011Germany's national film industry has been undergoing a remarkable resurgence since the beginning of the new millennium. German language films have been receiving Oscar nominations, the likes of "Downfall" and "The Lives of Others" have been winning Oscars, and all the main international festivals, from Berlin to Cannes, have been showcasing these films. German language cinema is again attracting attention at home and abroad and "New Directions in German Cinema" explores its developments since 2000.
Citing your sources (e.g. MLA, APA, etc.)
- Citation Managers (e.g. Zotero, EndNote Online, etc.)Citation managers are software packages used to create personalized databases of citation information and notes. They allow you to: import and organize citation information from article indexes and other sources; save links to pdfs and other documents; format citations for your papers and bibliographies using APA and many other styles; and include your own notes.
Many article databases (e.g. Academic Search Premier, Google Scholar) will create a citation for you. After you found the item, look for "cite" or "quotes." Here are examples:
In Google Scholar:
In Academic Search Premier:
- Chicago Manual of Style OnlineThis resource provides online access to the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, which covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and citation formating. The citation quick guide covers both the author-date and the notes and bibliography systems.
- Citation and research help (from Purdue OWL)Examples and instructions for how to cite many types of materials in MLA, APA, Chicago, and AMA styles.
Learn more about on annotated bibliographies
Annotated Bibliography from UW-Madison
An annotated bibliography is an organized list of sources, each of which is followed by a brief note or “annotation.”
- How to write an annotated bibliographyLearn more about annotated bibliographies.
- Writing Evaluative Annotated BibliographiesThis chapter includes useful questions to guide you in writing annotations for an annotated bibliography.