Research on the Internet - D.H. Lawrence

I spent a very pleasant morning at the University of Huddersfield having my library induction. Not only are the newly refurbished facilities top-notch, but it's also amazing how much we can use the library's wonderful resources without even setting foot in the place!

Today I'm going to share with you one of the resources that the librarian told us about - one that you too can use on the internet without having to be a member of the university library. It's Intute.

When you search for something on Google, you may end up with lots of references which aren't what you're looking for. For example, if you were to type in 'hairdressing', you wouldn't just get articles about how to do hairdressing - you'd get hundreds of adverts as well for hairdressing salons and products.

Intute is a site that has been put together by university librarians and academics, so if you use it to search for something, you know that somebody reliable from the world of education has already filtered the sites it leads to and checked that what you find should be useful.

I decided to use Intute when I got home to find some more information on D.H. Lawrence, whose short story, A Sick Collier, my Thursday night class had been studying. Intute directed me to a website run by Nottingham University, which has a famous archive of works by and about D.H. Lawrence.

Particularly interesting was the D.H. Lawrence Portal which you can access by typing in www.dh-lawrence.org.uk/ This provides a wealth of information about the author, his works, and his links with the East Midlands. It's a great place to look if you want to find out about his life or to see some of the collieries that provide the backdrop to his writings.

Another useful site which I found was www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/dhl-00.htm.

It's possible to read lots of DH Lawrence's works straight from the internet, including A Sick Collier, which was originally published in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914). If you type the name of the collection into Google, you should eventually find the text of the stories.

Finally, if you'd like to read about some of the greatest short story writers, there is a very informative article on the mantex site: www.mantex.co.uk/ou/resource/story-00.htm.

Happy browsing!