Reference Works in general. A quick and authoritative source for beginning information on most literary, art, and musical subjects is Encyclopedia Britannica Online .
Entries are scholarly.
It is a good place to check if you're having trouble finding biographical information in other sources. Students of opera should not neglect the New Grove Dictionary of Opera . Books Trexler Library's online catalog will connect to books on biography of famous persons, major themes of the age, history, and literary criticism. Or try a keyWORD search for all occurences of a term, or when you want to combine terms. To greatly expand your search for books, try WorldCat , which searches all library catalogs in the U.S. at once.