Reference sources include:

• Beacham's Research Guide to Biography and Criticism (six volumes)
• Bloom Series of over 500 books from Chelsea House Publishers edited by Harold Bloom
• The Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story
• Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
• Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
• Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature
• The Literary Encyclopedia
• The complete MagillOnLiterature Plus
• Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
• The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
• The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature

• Contemporary Authors: selected entries
• Contemporary Literary Criticism Select since vol. 95, plus 266 most studied authors from editions prior to vol. 95
• Dictionary of Literary Biography: selected entries
• Twayne's Author Series
• Scribners Writers Series
• Biography and Genealogy Master Index
• Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
• Chadwyck-Healey's Literature Online (LION) full-text collection
• current, full-text critical essays on major authors from more than more than 130 prominent literary journals

It also contains selections from these publications: Children's Literature Review, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Drama Criticism, Drama for Students, Literature from 1400 to 1800, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Novels for Students, Poetry Criticism, Poetry for Students, Shakespearean Criticism, Shakespeare for Students, Short Story Criticism, Short Stories for Students, and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism.

The MLA Directory of Periodicals is now part of the MLA International Bibliography. Included is information on the periodicals that are indexed in the database, plus many more. The Directory of Periodicals data is updated annually.