LibGuides: English and Creative Writing: Books and eBooks

Using print books

How to find print books in the Library

Many of the print books in the library collection that are related to Creative Writing and English can be found on level 6 of the Adsetts Library. But you may also need to look in other sections depending on your topic.

When you look up a book in Library Search, the entry will say whether a printed version of the book is available. The entry in Library Search also tells you whether the book is held at Adsetts or Collegiate Library and the book’s shelfmark. Shelfmarks are numbers used to organise books in the Library according to their topic. The shelfmark number is located on the spine of each book and the books are arranged in numerical order in the library. Books that are next to each other on the shelf will be about similar topics.

The signs at the end of each shelf tell you the topics and shelfmark numbers covered by the books on that shelf.

There will normally be 2 or 3 letters after the shelfmark number on Library Search (e.g. 813.6 JEM). These are usually taken from the author's surname and are used to alphabetically arrange books that have the same shelfmark number.

Need help with borrowing books?

You can find out more about borrowing library books here:

Library guide to borrowing books

Using eBooks

The Library aims to have both digital and print versions of books as we know both formats are important especially when studying away from the University. Unfortunately publishers do not always offer an eBook in a format suitable for library use, or it is not available at the time we order the print version.

How to find eBooks in Library Search

Go to Library Online: https://library.shu.ac.uk.
Search for your keywords in Library Search - e.g. dystopian fiction.
To the left of your search results click on Books / eBooks and Online.
Choose a book and follow the link(s) available under Full text availability.

Reading eBooks

How you can use an eBook depends on terms and conditions set by the publisher. In most cases you will be able to choose between reading online and downloading the eBook for a limited period to your own device. When downloaded eBooks expire you can download them again.

Most eBooks can be read by more than one reader at a time but sometimes you may have to wait if another reader is using the book.You can search within individual eBooks, add notes and print or copy a limited number of pages from most eBooks.

Further help with eBooks

If you need further help please take a look at the Library Help guide to eBooks or contact the Library using the links below:

eBook collections for Creative Writing and English

You can use Library Search to discover eBooks for your coursework. However, you may find it helpful to search specific collections depending on your topic. Here are some eBook collections that we have in the Library which have content that might be useful to Creative Writing and English students:

ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new window
Contains 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, dissertations, and more than 500,000 primary works – including rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings.
Drama online This link opens in a new window
Drama Online includes new writers alongside the more iconic names in playwriting history. It provides contextual and critical background through scholarly works and practical guides. The collection supports theatre studies, literature courses and drama schools. Content ranges from the monologue; ensemble to one-person plays; comedy to tragedy; the historical to the contemporary; and from the highly political to the profoundly personal.
Manchester University ebook collection This link opens in a new window
Access for the following collections only: Manchester Film studies ; Manchester Gothic ; Manchester Literature studies ; Manchester Shakespeare ; Manchester studies in Imperialism. Offers full-text searching for the titles in the collection.
Cambridge works of Ben Jonson Online This link opens in a new window
This online edition of the print work published in 2012 presents a fully searchable version of the Print Edition, including all the original introductions, collations, and commentary, but it complements, develops, and vastly extends the Print Edition with a large and flexible array of textual and contextual materials. The textual components consist of hundreds of digital images and dozens of searchable old-spelling transcriptions of the early printed versions of Jonson’s texts and some of the major manuscripts.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
Beginning with the very first book published in English, EEBO draws from four authoritative bibliographical resources – both Pollard & Redgrave’s Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing’s Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) in their revised versions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) and the Early English Books Tract Supplement – to present more than 146,000 titles and over 17 million scanned pages of content.

Useful shelfmarks for English

African literature	896
American authors e.g. Edward Albee	818 818 AlbeeE
American drama	812
American fiction	813
American literature 1830-1861 1861-1900 1900-1945 1945 onwards	810 810.3 810.4 810.52 810.54
American literature	811
Children's literature	028.5
Comedy	809.917
Criticism	801.95
Discourse analysis	401.41, 415
English authors e.g. Jane Austen	828 828 AustenJ
English drama	822
English fiction	823
English language, history	420.9
English literature 1558-1625, Elizabethan 1625-1702 1702-1745 1745-1800 1800-1837, Romantics 1837-1900, Victorian 1900-1945 1945 onwards	820 820.3 820.4 820.5 820.6 820.7 820.8 820.912 820.914
English poetry	821
Gothic fiction, criticism	809.38729, 823.6, 823.7
Grammar	415, 425
Linguistics	410
Literature, Comparative	809
Psycholinguistics	401.9
Romanticism in literature	809.914
Sociolinguistics	306.44, 408
Shakespeare	828 ShakesprW
Theatre	792
Tragedy	809.251
Women and literature	809.89287

Requesting books that are not available from Sheffield Hallam libraries

If you need to access a resource that the library doesn't already have in its collection, then you can use our Document Supply Service. You can use the library's Document Supply Service to request journal articles, books, book chapters, or other resources not available at Sheffield Hallam. The Document Supply Service will then apply to borrow these resources from other libraries, both from within the UK and from around the world.

More information about how to use this service can be found at the following link:

Document Supply Service

Recommend something for the library

We love books and are always on the look for new publications to support your learning and keep the library up to date with high-quality materials. If you think we're missing something crucial though, we'd like to hear about it. You can let us know using the below form:

Recommend a resource to the library