Fascinating facts at your fingertips

What do authors J. D. Salinger, Belva Plain and Richard Scarry all

have in common? Give up? They were all born in the same year, 1919,

which is also the year “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” author L. Frank

Baum passed away. And what’s the tie between John Steinbeck’s “East

of Eden” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”? Both of

these well-known novels were published in 1952. Where can you find

answers to these questions and virtually everything you wanted to

know about who’s who in the world of literature? Look no further than

the Newport Beach Public Library.

The Newport Beach Public Library has added another tool to its

vast array of resources. This latest addition is the Literature

Resource Center. The Literature Resource Center is a literature

reference database with information on historical and contemporary

literary figures and their works. The database contains literary data

from all time periods of writing including a variety of genres such

as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism and

others.

Want to discover more about the authors you love to read? This new

tool offers biographical coverage of more than 120,000 authors.

Besides biographical information, author entries include listings of

an author’s works and significant moments in their literary career,

full text journal articles, literary criticisms and useful websites

relating to the author’s life and works.

So how do you access this impressive new resource? To get started,

all you need is a Newport Beach Public Library card. You can get a

card at any of the Libraries in Newport Beach by simply bringing in

your ID. Best of all, a library card is free for any California

resident. With card in hand, you can use the Literature Resource

Center on one of the library computer terminals or from any computer

with Internet access. From the Library’s Web page,

www.newportbeachlibrary.org, click the “Find Information” tab, then

the “Databases” link, then select “Literature Resource Center.”

Dazzle your friends with literature trivia factoids. Find out what

else your favorite author has written. Read published magazine

articles about novels and authors. All this and more can be found

just a few clicks away in the Literature Resource Center.

* CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public

Library. This week’s column is by Melissa Hartson. All titles may be

reserved from home or office computers by accessing the catalog at

https://www.newport beachlibrary.org. For more information on the

Central Library or any of the branch locations, please contact the

Newport Beach Public Library at (949) 717-3800, option 2.