The UW Libraries catalog points to numerous books, media (mostly DVD's) etc. relevant to French. You can enter a search using the catalog box above. Starting with a keyword search often works best. If you find something that's exactly what you want, look at the Subject(s) shown on the detailed display. You can click on any of those that look helpful, and often this will turn up additional relevant sources.
The buttons on the left show available access options. If an item is not at UW you can often get it via Prospector (except articles--see Getting Full Text on the Articles tab); if not in Prospector, use Request It.
To limit your search to materials in the French language: first do a search (by author, title, subject, or keyword). When you get your results back, click the "Limit/Sort Search" button near the top of the screen. Then choose French from the alphabetical "Language:" drop-down box and click Submit. You should now be seeing only listings for French-language works.
Conversely, if you wish to read English translations of given works or authors originally in French, do the same "Limit/Sort Search" action but highlight English (located at the top of the language limiter box preceding the main A-Z list).
Examples for searching for French-related materials:
To search for works of a given author, select Author on the Search Type box to the left. Then type in last name followed by first name (or first initial if you're not sure of the complete first name), i.e. camus albert or sartre j (Note: the system ignores upper vs. lower case so you don't have to worry about capitalization.) You will see either a list of works or, if the author name does not match exactly what you typed in, a list of author names from which you can choose the correct one.
For titles, usually typing in the title, or just the first few words of it, will work well. You can search by title in French or English. In either case, it's best to leave out initial articles. For example, type etranger not l'etranger.
In the right column are some examples of subject searches for various French language and literature-related subjects that represent a variety of topics most likely to be of interest. Simply click on a subject heading of interest and you will be taken to the results within the catalog database.