Free Digital Libraries, part 1
This is the most well known of the digital libraries. It contains over 20,000 books in numerous languages (though predominantly in English) in the public domain. The database is catalogued like any library and easy to search by author, title or subject. You can even search the full text. The database doesn’t only contain novels but also essays, audio books, etc.
Also to help your search, the list the Top 100 books as well as recently added books. They also have a new feature called “bookmark”, it allows you to mark where you last stopped reading online.
Most of their ebook are in html, pdfor plain text which I personally find hard on the eyes in the long run. I do however like that they also make Plucker files which is a program you can install on your pocket PC. The latter is much more in fitting with my reading habits and thus appreciated. I plan to test the program on my way to school today to see if it really does enhance the reading experience.
This must be a brilliant resource… if you go to the University of Virginia. I was getting increasingly annoyed with every “UVA Only” I saw in bright red next to this text or other that I wanted to read. Still they have a wonderful selection. They have texts in old, middle and modern English, in German, French, Latin and on separate sites, Chinese, Japanese and Apache (all three of which are fully accessible in original languages and translation). They have poetry, plays, and prose, fiction and non-fiction. And to be fair, while most of their texts are not freely available to people outside of UVA, there are still numerous texts that are, including nearly 10,000 titles from the Modern English collection (many of which are now available as ebooks). It’s definitely worth a look.
This is a project by Harvard and McGill to aims to make pre-modern Chinese writings by women available outside of rare book libraries. They currently offer 90 titles in Chinese which can be searched by author (including her name, ethnicity and marital status), title, book it’s contained within, genre, period, poetic form, geographic location… and I could go on. The site offers scans of the volumes in question; this can be occasionally difficult to read depending on the condition of the original document. Nevertheless this site is wonderful for anyone studying pre-modern Chinese.
The Women’s Writers Project is an initiative by Brown University to make the writings of women more available. It is not free but I felt the need to bring it up because it truly is a wonderful resource. It contains the works of many important female writers (of both fiction and non-fiction) from 1400 to 1850, which may be difficult to find elsewhere. You can order printouts of the works from their database and many Universities (including McGill) do have access to it, so if you have the opportunity, I suggest checking it out.
I haven’t even put a dent in the numerous digital libraries available. I’ll have more in my next post but I you should have more than enough to keep you occupied until then. ^_^
Writing and Citation
As an academic, I can well appreciate the importance of citation and writing styles. Still I made it though 5 years of University with nothing but my trusty MLA (Modern Language Association) style. It was thus a bit unnerving that upon coming to Library school, I was suddenly asked for everything in APA (American Psychological Association) format. Realizing that I’ll probably have to explain, even teach writing and citation someday, I threw myself into learning this new style. Purdue’s Online Writing Lab has been an invaluable resource for me.
The site contains numerous topics relating to writing and citation (academic and technical writing in particular but there is also a brief section on creative writing). In fact, where professional writing styles are concerned, I’d even venture to call it comprehensive. The information is well organized, with clear subsections relating to things such as grammar, citation, the writing process, teaching writing, job searches, etc. Their concern with integrity and etiquette is quite refreshing.
OWL’s descriptions are clear and with good examples. Each page is brief and to the point, clearly guiding the reader to other relevant information on a topic. The information offered is appropriate for both novices and experts.
It is a good site that is reliable and easy to navigate. It is perfect for a quick refresher or for learning a new style.
Be sure to answer their survey to further improve their services!
Canadian Genealogy Addendum
Reading some old issues of the Bibliotheques et Archives du Quebec’s (which also has a lot to offer, but that’s another post) journal, I found that there is actually a web portal for Quebec genealogical research. It can be found here.
The first thing of note is that the English version of the site is not complete. For full information, you need to be able to read French. However if you can, this is a great resource. They offer links, free access to the FQSG journal, and access to some genealogical databases. Some of these databases are only available with (free) membership but “Fichier d’Origine” (a migration list), “Index des contrats de marriage” (a scanned book listing marriages in Quebec), “Phototheque”, “Prenoms rares” (for rare names), “Patronymes doubles” (for ancestors who may have changed names) and “Index des paroisses” (a list of parishes) are available to all.
But perhaps more importantly they have a great deal of advice on how to proceed in your search, how to display your results (including links to free programs) and information about sources that can be used. They even suggest ways (and reasons) to involve children and teenagers in genealogical research.
They also have a glossary of common terms used in official documents and other genealogical sources. This is quite useful if you’re new to the field. It’s organized alphabetically and quite easy to browse even if it isn’t searcheable.
If nothing else, check out their links section. There are links to genealogical sites in Quebec, the rest of Canada, the US and France as well as some other useful links.
I feel I’m going to spend a lot of time on this site in the near future.
Behind the Name
This is my favorite names database; I use it for all my writing. It has fairly sophisticated search options: you can search alphabetically, by country of origin, by meaning, and by name. You can limit results by gender. They offer a very broad range of countries to search through.
There are some other fun features such as random name generators, anagram names, names for twins and thematic names. They list namesakes, name days and lists of most popular names. There is also a name translator which will convert the name of your choice into a number of other languages.
I’d like to point out some bad features but I really am quite fond of this page.The content is helpful, the design is simple but attractive and they update frequently. They even allow user input through their message boards and polls.
Behind the Name has a sister site known as Behind the Surname but while it functions in the same way I find myself less impressed with it. Perhaps I’m just bitter because none of the surnames in my family are in the database. But that’s what the message boards are for, I suppose.
Canadian Genealogy
Oh dear, I’ve been neglecting this blog for quite some time. I blame school but hopefully I can do better.
Not long ago I went about searching for my roots. Fortunately for me and my fellow quebecois, there are quite a few references online to help in this endeavor.
My favorite is Genealogie Quebec. It lists names alphabetically by last name and has a search and advanced search option. The information is available in both English and French. It also contains a great deal of information about the people in its database: births and deaths, occupations, origins, marriages, parents, children, etc. This information isn’t even throughout; some have almost no information. Nevertheless there is enough to move back through time. I was able to trace several lines of my family back to 16th century France. The one problem is that the most recent information is from the early 19th century; you do need to know a little about your family tree to get started.
One tip I can offer about looking for information on ancestors online (especially in Google) is to search for married couples. I’ve found marriage records to be the easiest to track down and they often list the names of the parents as well. For example looking up my great-great-great Grand parents “Francois Picard” and “Cedulie Ruel” told me that they were married on January 14, 1862 at Ste Claire, Dorchester and the names of their parents (all of whom I was able to locate on Genealogie Quebec).
Some other resources include the Dictionaire Genealogique (a scan of the original document, useful but difficult for unknown searches) and Pistard (which allows users to search archives by keyword).
There are also many people who post their family trees online and many communities (such as Rootsweb and Geneanet) devoted to genealogical research; these can be a valuable resource. My own tree should be going up this summer and hopefully it will be of help to all the other Ricards and Picards out there.
Next I plan to get started on my maternal family which hails from Germany. If anyone has advice on where to get started, please let me know.
Thieves Cant
I found this page while doing some research for my writing. It is a basic dictionary of the slang used by thieves in the 18th and 19th century. It’s hardly comprehensive but it does give a feeling for the language.
The site isn’t very impressive graphically, nor does it have any search functions above what your browser can offer you but it’s easy to use and very interesting. Be careful when using the English to Cant section, however, as it puts together words, without explanation that have significant differences in the Cant to English section. For example, mad Tom is listed under beggar with no further clarification but if you look it up in the Cant to English section, you will find that it’s a “beggar who feigns madness”.
It’s a lot of fun and useful in certain contexts.
The Canting Dictionary [thieving slang], 1736 and The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue have more words but they are impossible to search effectively. For one there is no English to Cant so you need to know the word in Thieves Cant to look it up. The navigation is also somewhat awkward and it allows no searching whatsoever, only browsing.
Back from the holidays
Jim Breen’s Japanese Dictionary
This website was a godsend to me while I was studying Japanese as an undergrad. You can search for Japanese words in roman script or in kana and kanji or search for English words. It also includes a kanji dictionary which can be searched by meaning, reading, stroke number and radical. It also allows you to input whole sentences in Japanese for translation (although it translates the individual words and like most online translators has little to no understanding of the grammar).
This is probably the best freely- available Japanese dictionary and many of the others are based on it. It’s good for beginners and experts.
Google Guide
As most people use Google for the majority of their searches, I thought that my first post should be about this tool. It has its limitations (natural language searching being high among them) but it also has many features that most people aren’t aware of. Google Guide is an incredibly useful reference for making the most of Google. It could be a little long to read in a single sitting but it’s well indexed and easy to navigate so that you can go directly to the section that interests you. I would recommend at least looking at their Cheat Sheet and Calculator Cheat Sheet which have quick lists of the different operators you can use in Google and what they do.
Welcome to my Digital Library
The idea for this site came from reference questions I’ve received and my own desire to keep a record of what I have learned and useful resources I have found. I will be using this blog to share useful reference sites on various subjects. I will also be discussing issues of interest to me related to library studies.
Why am I a rogue librarian? Perhaps because I have a great interest in popular culture and new technologies; I want to find a way to integrate these interests with the more traditional aspects of librarianship. This site is my small way of contributing to this effort. You can find more about me on the about page.
Welcome to the Rogue Librarian’s Digital Library, I hope you find it helpful.
