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.
