Databases

A multi-disciplinary database that covers millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources including podcasts, transcripts and videos.

Academic Video Online provides nearly 80,000 titles spanning subjects from anthropology to zoology. Curated for curricular relevance, this streaming video database includes feature films, documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs, newsreels, and demonstrations.

Browse by Channels to see what's available by subject or source, or search by title.

American Film Scripts Online (AFSO) contains 1,009 scripts by 1,062 writers together with detailed, fielded information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts. In addition, the database includes facsimilie images for more than 500 of these screenplays. Most of the scripts have never been published before, and are not otherwise available online.

The rationale behind the database is not only to provide access to many previously unpublished screenplays, but to allow scripts to become part of the established corpus of literary works. Legal, authoritative versions of these screenplays will, the producers hope, be consulted by a wide range of scholars, including historians, sociologists, and those who study literature.

A multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities; it fully covers 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, and indexes individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. It contains a current total of over 2.5 million records. Subjects covered include archaeology, art, architecture, Asian studies, classics, dance, folklore, history, language, linguistics, literary reviews, literature, music, philosophy, poetry, radio, television, & film, religion and theatre. As of January 2000, the Arts & Humanities Index contains searchable, full-length, English-language author abstracts.

This edition of Asian American Drama contains 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. Some 50% of these plays have never been published before. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays.

Contains approximately 1200 plays from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Some 440 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors. 

British Periodicals provides access to the searchable full text of British periodicals from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century (the same periodicals as are covered in the UMI microfilm collection "Early British Periodicals"). It includes millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Subject areas covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences.

Founded in 1974 in Trinidad & Tobago, Banyan Productions was the first television producer of innovative and entertaining programs for, about, and by the Caribbean people and culture. Banyan’s mission was to provide the Caribbean people with the means to tell their stories to one anotherwithout influence from the outside world. Now, for the first time, those stories will be available on the Alexander Street platform.

With a mixture of history, entertainment, and social commentary, Banyan has produced a film library  covering documentary, drama, music, dance, and much more, spanning the past forty years.

Previously inaccessible in streaming format, this collection features more than 1,100 hours of edited programs along with unedited footage that will enhance study across a host of disciplines and subjects, including: Caribbean Studies, Black Studies, History, Anthropology, Sociology, Religion, Visual Arts, Dance, Music, Literature, Theatre and Media Studies.

Criterion's goal is to provide easy access to educationally relevant feature films.  This collection provides over 1500 feature films from mainstream Hollywood studios (Paramount, Miramax, etc.) as well as documentaries, animated features, and titles from independent producers. Included films span the 20th century, from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) to contemporary award-winners. 

Criterion is licensed for teaching, research, and personal use only.  All other uses, including public viewings or events or screen-sharing via Teams or Zoom, is prohibited.

An online streaming video collection of current, leading British theatre productions, musicals, and operas, including notable works such as the Donmar Shakespeare.

Includes behind-the-scenes documentaries as well as teaching and learning resources to facilitate a deeper understanding of the productions and texts. Learning resources include a detailed introduction, plot summary, character biographies, a relationship map, language analysis, scene study, performance background and historical context for each play.

Drama Online is an award-winning digital library that has been created as a response to the need for a high-quality online research tool for drama and literature students, professors, and teachers. It combines exclusively available playtext content and scholarly publications with filmed live performances, film adaptations and audio plays.

McMaster offers access to: 

Cross-search over 30 indexing, abstracting, and fulltext databases in a range of subjects.

Contains primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theatre are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles. Issues have been scanned in high-resolution color, with granular indexing of articles, covers, ads and reviews. Subject coverage includes the film industry, music business, rock and pop, jazz and blues, theatre, television, and radio. McMaster has access to the Cinema, Film and Televsion collection (Parts 1 & 2) and the Music, Radio and Stage collection.

Citations to articles in film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. Provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 380 publications, and selected coverage of 300 more.

Covers industry papers, news journalism, and scholarly academic journals on topics for film and television. Titles include Film Journal International, Journal of British Cinema & Television, Film Criticism, Post Script, and Variety, as well as technical publications such as SMPTE.

Also covers international film and television publications such as Cahiers du Cinema, Cinema in India, Cinemamaya, Filmkultura, Segnocinema, and Kinetoscopio.

The FRANTEXT database (formerly the Trésor de la langue française) consists more than 3500 texts, ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing. The eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries are about equally represented, with a smaller selection of seventeenth century texts as well as some medieval and Renaissance texts. Genres include novels, verse, theatre, journalism, essays, correspondence, and treatises. Subjects include literary criticism, biology, history, economics, and philosophy.

Globe on Screen 1&2, available from Drama Online, includes a selection of critically acclaimed performances at Shakespeare’s Globe, founded by the pioneering American actor and director Sam Wanamaker. Dedicated to the exploration of Shakespeare’s work and the theatre for which he wrote, Globe on Screen video collection contains 30 stunning stage productions representing over 75 hours of content. Recorded live on the Globe stage in high definition and surround sound, the videos feature performances from leading actors including Mark Rylance, Stephen Fry, and Roger Allam’s Olivier award-winning role as Falstaff in Henry IV.

Provides detailed indexing and abstracts for almost 700 periodicals covering the humanities (of which 470 are peer-reviewed), including feature articles, interviews, bibliographies, obituaries, as well as reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, radio and television programs, plays, operas, and more. Subject coverage includes archaeology, classical studies, art, performing arts, philosophy, history, music, linguistics, literature, and religion. 

JSTOR provides access to a digital archive of journals in the areas of Arts, Business, Economics, and Sciences. JSTOR includes the entire runs of these journals, from the very first issue to the volumes published a few years ago. With a small number of exceptions - the "Current Scholarship" titles - JSTOR is a backfile collection and excludes the most recent issues (as part of the terms of the agreement with the journal publishers).

McMaster's subscription to  Kanopy provides online access to over 7,000 documentary films from a range of major producers, including PBS, California Newsreel, Kino Lober, Documentary Educational Resources, and many more.  Videos can be integrated with Avenue to Learn and accessed remotely by students.  The majority of the videos are closed captioned, and clip-making is allowed.  Transcripts are also available by clicking on the 'More' tab.

Full screen mode and playback speeds can be adjusted upon clicking the "Play" button of the video.

To access additional features such as creating a Clip/Playlist, Adding comments or sharing via social media, a personal login  (eg. Google) is recommended.

Further information is available at the Kanopy Help page

Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts.Subject coverage includes gay rights, gay culture, gay literature/art, gay rights movement, gender identity, gender studies, lesbianism, LGBT activism, LGBT studies, social history and transgender community.

Provides the full text of more than 350,000 works of poetry, drama and prose from the eighth century to the present day.

Provides critical analyses, biographies, and bibliographies for authors from every age and literary discipline. The database covers more than 130,000 novelists, essayist, poets, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of the most-studied authors.  Content is pulled from several well-known print reference series including the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and Contemporary Authors.

A cooperative catalogue of the film and video collections of Ontario university libraries. Faculty may request the loan of films for classroom use. The Interfilm Policy requires that McMaster place an order with other institutions at least 10 working days before the show date. Typical loan periods are for 2-3 days only.

Provides detailed information on over 6,000 journals and book series that cover literature, literary theory, dramatic arts, folklore, language, linguistics, pedagogy, rhetoric and composition, and the history of printing and publishing. It serves as a resource for scholars seeking outlets to publish their work, providing information on topics covered, editorial policies, contact information, and submission guidelines.  Articles published in works listed in the directory are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography.

Includes over 2 million citations covering literature, language, film, linguistics and folklore. Provides access to scholarly articles in over 4,400 journals; also covers relevant books, dissertations, working papers, proceedings and bibliographies. The database also has an identifiable subset of more than 77,000 records that constitute the JSTOR subfile. This consists of citation records for documents in JSTOR's Language and Literature Collection. The documents date back as far as 1881 and contain direct links to the full-text articles on the JSTOR website.

Features streaming videos of films, clips and trailers from the National Film Board (NFB) collection, including NFB world-renowned documentaries, films that chronicle key moments in the lives of Canadians and works that take a stand on issues of global importance: the environment, human rights, international conflict and more. It also contains acclaimed Canadian dramatic features, documentaries, animated films, and experimental works.

High definition streaming video of 50 National Theatre Live (U.K.) broadcasts, with notable productions of Shakespeare, as well as recordings never previously seen outside of the National Theatre’s archive. The database also includes exclusive digitized archival materials such as prompt scripts, costume designs, and more are available to provide behind-the-scenes background and contextual information.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online provides full-text, fully searchable content from a wide range of primary sources. Archives published in the program include works in Western as well as non-Western languages and are sourced from rare collections at libraries and other venerable institutions from around the globe. McMaster currently has access to these collections: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection and Europe and Africa, Colonialism and Culture 

Contains 244 plays by 48 playwrights representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the twentieth century. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others. Together, the plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and approaches to drama—melding conventional dramatic form with ancient storytelling and ritual performance elements, experimenting with traditional ideas of time and narrative, or challenging Western dramatic structure.

Covers many aspects of the Canadian and American Theatre. Its goal is to provide detailed reference information for every theatrical figure, every play, every theatre, every major production, and every production company, from Colonial times to the present, in both Canada and the United States. To date it includes some 40,000 pages of major reference materials, together with records to approximately 30,000 plays, over 57,000 people, 5,400 theatres, nearly 22,000 productions and 2,500 production companies. The collection also includes approximately 10,500 images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other resources.