Primary Source Collection: La Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux (BVMM)

La Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux (BVMM) is a digital library of medieval manuscripts from French libraries across the country (but not the National Library) made available by the IRHT (Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes). The interface is in French but easy to use. There is a map view that allows you to browse by city.

Resource Trial: Additional ProQuest Primary Source databases

ProQuest has added more of their resources to the UC-wide trial they are offering. These include:

•  Historic Chinese Newspapers 
•  The Boston Globe 
•  The Times of India 
•  History Vault- Vietnam War 
•  History Vault- Women’s Rights Movement 
•  Entertainment Industry and Magazine Archive 

Click HERE for ProQuest Trial Access

Digital Public Library of America is launched

"In its first iteration, the DPLA will combine a group of rich, interesting digital collections, from state and regional digital archives to the special collections of major university libraries and federal holdings. The DPLA will demonstrate how powerful and exciting it can be to bring together our nation’s digitized materials, metadata (including catalog records, for instance), code, and digital tools and services into an open, shared resource. Imagine the ability to access a vastly larger set of materials than ever before, both through a single web portal and through your local library, which has carefully curated a subset of the national database."

From "What is the DPLA?" (John Palfrey, Library Journal, April 8, 2013)

 Here is the new site: http://dp.la/

 A recent article by Robert Darnton in the New York Review of Books describes the creation and future of the DPLA.

 See also: How the Digital Public Library of America hopes to build a real public commons

Resource Trial: Multiple primary source collections

The vendor ProQuest is providing trial access to a wide range of products that some UCs own and some have tried out. The trials are good for 29 days. If you have any feedback on these resources, feel free to comment on the blog or contact me directly.

The trial includes:

British Periodicals Online - Collection 1 & 2

To learn more about this collection, please visit:   British Periodicals Online

To experience this collection:   Click HERE to trial ProQuest British Periodicals

Early European Books
To learn more about this collection, please visit:  Early European Books

To experience this collection:  Click HERE to trial Early European Books

History Vault Immigration: Records of the INS, 1880-1930

History Vault NAACP Papers  - 3 Modules

To learn more about this collection and the eleven additional modules available, please visit:  ProQuest History Vault

Libguide support for this collection:  ProQuest History Vault LibGuide

To experience this collection:  Click HERE to trial History Vault

LA Sentinel (1934-2005)

New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993)

The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988)

To earn more about this collection, please visit:  ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Libguide support for this collection:  ProQuest Historical Newspapers LibGuide

To experience this collection:  Click HERE to trial ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Event: Bancroft Round Table

The final Bancroft Round Table of the 2013 Spring Semester will take place on Thursday, April 18 at noon in the traditional Lewis-Latimer room of the Faculty Club. Eli Rosenblatt, Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley Jewish Studies Program and Curatorial Intern at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life will give a talk on “The Mother Tongue in the Uttermost West: Yiddish-Language Printed Materials in the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the Bancroft Library.”

This talk explores the collection of Yiddish-language printed materials published in California housed at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. The collection includes a wide variety of novels, poetry collections, pamphlets, literary journals and rabbinic commentaries published by Eastern European Jews who settled on the California coast between 1881 and 1924. The modernist literature contained in the collection, and the Californian Yiddish literary circles it represents, helps us grasp the global dimensions of Yiddish literary movements. It offers a unique vantage point from which to discuss the circulation of Ashkenazi Jewish culture between its heartland in Slavic Europe and the Americas, Southern Africa, the Middle East and Western Europe.

The community is invited to join us to learn more about this little known aspect of Jewish and California history. Bancroft Round Tables aim to highlight the myriad collections of our Library and showcase the ways in which they enrich our historical experience.

Resource Trial: Early European Books

ProQuest is offering a free open trial to Early European Books to readers of the Early Modern Online Bibliography blog. Access is from April 8th to April 22, 2013.

"Through the highest quality digital reproductions of thousands of printed works by important writers and thinkers working in continental Europe pre-1700, Early European Books gives researchers an international overview of early print culture during this vibrant period of history... All volumes are digitized on-site at participating libraries, which to date include Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Bibliotheque nationale de France (from June 2013), Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, and Wellcome Library, London."

To access Early European Books, visit http://earlymodernonlinebib.wordpress.com/ 8-22 April.

Event: Exhibit Reception

Hidden Treasures: UC Berkeley’s South Asian & Southeast Asian Special Collections opened in the Doe Library’s first floor Bernice Layne Brown Gallery on April 9 and will remain until August 30. You are welcome to attend a reception celebrating the opening, which will include a dance performance and light refreshments.



EXHIBIT RECEPTION
Tuesday, April 16, 5 PM - 7 PM
Morrison Library (first floor of Doe Library)

The exhibit retraces over a century of special collections acquisitions in arts, humanities and social sciences that represent a rich cultural and intellectual legacy for the South Asian and Southeast Asian community at Berkeley and beyond.

Co-sponsored by the Center for South Asia Studies, the Center for Southeast Asia Studies, and the Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies. Curated by the staff of the South/Southeast Asia Library.