Primary Sources: 19th Century British Pamphlets

Due to budget cuts, the Library ended its previous subscription to this resource. Access has been restored through a purchase of JSTOR content by the California Digital Library.

From the JSTOR site: “Throughout the 19th century, pamphlets were an important means of public debate, covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of their day. 19th Century British Pamphlets, created by Research Libraries UK (RLUK), contains the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in research libraries in the United Kingdom.”

More than 26,000 pamphlets from seven major UK research institutions are searchable and browsable in JSTOR.
Bristol Selected Pamphlets 1800-1899
Cowen Tracts 1603-1898
Earl Grey Pamphlets Collection 1800-1900
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection 1545-1900
Hume Tracts 1769-1890
Knowsley Pamphlet Collection 1792-1868
LSE Selected Pamphlets 1800-1899
Manchester Selected Pamphlets 1799-1900
Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection

I recommend reading the guides provided by the project, which describe more fully the content of the collections and how to search them. The guides also point out that the pamphlets don’t only reveal contemporary viewpoints, they contain statistics, illustrations, maps, and other evidence that would inform your research. Because pamphlets were sometimes published in response to another publication putting forward an opposing viewpoint, tracking them can provide insight into public debates.


Local and Independent Ukrainian Newspapers on Global Press Archive Electronically Available

The 1990s and early 2000s marked a turbulent period in Ukraine’s history due to the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of an independent Ukraine. Despite gaining free speech and property rights, citizens faced economic hardships. Corruption scandals and the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze in 2000 sparked nationwide protests against the political elite. The Local and Independent Ukrainian Newspapers collection covers this era up to the Orange Revolution (2004–2005), offering insights from over 900 newspapers across 340 cities, reflecting regional and ethnic dynamics. The collection includes publications in Ukrainian, Russian, and other languages like Armenian, German, Polish, etc., providing a detailed view of historical events. Access to this database is supported by the Center for Research Libraries and its members.

One can access this collection here.

Here is the landing page of the The 1990s and early 2000s were a tumultuous time in Ukraine’s history. The fall of the Soviet Union and the establishment of independent Ukraine radically altered its political system. Citizens were guaranteed free speech and property rights; however, they suffered under a prolonged economic depression. In 2000, corruption scandals and the murder of investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze triggered nationwide protests against Ukraine’s political elites.

 


Library workshops: Advanced Zotero series

Advanced Zotero workshops are intended for Zotero users who want to go beyond the basics of collecting citations and exporting bibliographies.  If you are new to Zotero, consider attending one of the Library’s Introduction to Zotero workshops being offered this term.

Advanced Zotero workshops will be offered every other Wednesday, starting February 7th, from 12:10-1:00 via Zoom. Registration is required and the Zoom link will be provided to participants who register 24 hours in advance of the workshop. Register on the Library’s workshops page. You must have a Calnet ID to register for a workshop.

The agendas for the workshops are listed below. New developments in Zotero and associated add-ons may result in adjustments to the agendas. The workshop descriptions on the Library’s workshop pages will be kept up-to-date. 

The Library attempts to offer programs in an accessible, barrier-free way. If you require a disability-related accommodation, please contact me (Jennifer Dorner) at dorner@berkeley.edu at least one week in advance of the workshop you have registered for. 

 2/7 Advanced Zotero  Week 1: Managing your Zotero library

–        Methods for adding existing research materials to your Zotero library

–        Indexing and searching your Zotero library and attachments

–        Zotero 6.0 PDF viewer and annotation extractor

–        Creating and managing groups

2/21 Advanced Zotero  Week 2: Zutilo add-on

–        Installing and setting up Zutilo

–        Clean up library

–        Manage tags

–        Relate items

–       Create book & book section items

 3/6  Advanced Zotero Week 3: Managing attachments 

–        How and where Zotero saves attachments

–        Linked files vs. stored files

–        Using the Zotfile add-on to store attachments in a cloud server

–        Group attachment storage

 3/20 Advanced Zotero Week 4: Writing with Zotero 

–        Locating and adding citation styles

–        Zotero 6.0 Add note feature

–        Editing citations with Zotero’s tools

–        Changing the font/size of citations

–        Why things go wrong (broken links to Library, unable to update document, etc.)

4/3 Advanced Zotero Week 5: More add-ons & upcoming features

–        Zotero 7.0 beta

–        Zotero Research Assistant “AI” connector to ChatGPT

–        Storage scanner for Zotero

 4/17 Advanced Zotero Week 6: JURIS-M for multilingual scholarship 

–        Installing JURIS-M

–        Configure JURIS-M to link to your Zotero account

–        Setting up JURIS-M to store multilingual information.

–        Integrating JURIS-M into your writing process

5/1 Advanced Zotero Week 7: Agenda TBA 

 

 


Primary Sources: Czechoslovakia Crisis, 1968: The State Department’s Crisis Files

Czechoslovakia Crisis, 1968: The State Department’s Crisis Files consists of documents collected and collated from a variety of State Department sources by the State Department’s Executive Secretariat, and represents an administrative history of the crisis. This collection includes almost a day-by-day record of the events, including the U.S. and the West’s response to the Soviet occupation.

The resources is organized in a series of subcollections:


Primary Sources: British and US documents on Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Persia

Afghanistan and the U.S., 1945-1963: Records of the U.S. State Department Classified Files
Declassified U.S. State Department files documenting U.S. and Afghan relations during the height of the Cold War and U.S. policies toward Afghanistan. The resource includes 3 subcollections:

Afghanistan in 1919: The Third Anglo-Afghan War
The Third Anglo-Afghan War began 6 May 1919 and ended with an armistice on 8 August 1919 resulted in Afghanistan gaining indpendence from British influence. This collection of British India Office documents includes confidential correspondence, memoranda, orders, reports and other materials that provide a broad spectrum of information on military policy and administration, including the organization, operations and equipment of the British army during the war.

Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922: From Silk Road to Soviet Rule
This collection of British Foreign Office files explores the history of Persia (Iran), Central Asia and Afghanistan from the decline of the Silk Road in the first half of the nineteenth century to the establishment of Soviet rule over parts of the region in the early 1920s. It encompasses the era of “The Great Game” – a political and diplomatic confrontation between the Russian and British Empires for influence, territory and trade across a vast region, from the Black Sea in the west to the Pamir Mountains in the east.

Comprised of correspondence, intelligence reports, agents’ diaries, minutes, maps, newspaper excerpts and other materials from the FO 65, FO 106, FO 371 and FO 539 series, this resource forms one of the greatest existing sets of historical documents relating to this region, offering insights not only into the impact of Great Power politics on the region, but also the region’s peoples, cultures and societies.


Trial: Africa Commons

Trial access to the Africa Commons digital archival collections, produced by Coherent Digital, is available until January 31st.  This resource provides access to books, magazines, newspapers, government documents, manuscripts, photographs, videos, and oral histories related to African history and culture.  Africa Commons is a project which aims to enable Africa to easily control, digitize, and disseminate its cultural heritage–within Africa, and internationally.

Africa Commons comprises four distinct collections:

History and Culture, an index of open source materials related to African history and culture.

Black South African Magazines created from 1937-1973 targeting Black audiences.

Southern African Films and Documentaries including propaganda, newsreels, documentaries, feature films, and interviews spanning the 1900s to the early 2000s.

The Hilary Ng’wengo Archive documenting the fifty-year career of the iconic Kenyan journalist, publisher, commentator, and public figure Hilary Ng’wengo through his magazines, newspapers, television programs, and documentaries.

Send your feedback to Michele McKenzie at mmckenzie@berkeley.edu.


Center for Research Libraries releases Soviet-Era Ukrainian Newspapers Online

Center for Research Libraries in collaboration with the Global Press Archive of East View has released its latest digital collection of select Soviet-Era Ukrainian Newspaper. The collection can be accessed here: https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/seun/ or here

This image describes the landing page of the Center for Research Libraries Global Press Archives Soviet Era Ukrainian Digitized Newspapers page.
Soviet Era Ukrainian Newspaper project’s landing page. These are digital copies.

About the collection:

The early 20th century was a crucial time in Ukraine’s history, marked by attempts to establish an independent state, leading to the Ukrainian War of Independence. This conflict resulted in the creation of two countries by 1922: the Second Polish Republic in western Ukraine and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the rest of the country.

Following this, rapid Soviet collectivization in the Ukrainian SSR triggered the Holodomor, a famine that began in 1932 and claimed millions of lives.

The Soviet-Era Ukrainian Newspapers (SEUN) collection, with over 50,000 pages and five titles, documents Ukraine’s history during this turbulent period, including events leading up to WWII. It includes newspapers from Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv, featuring content in both Ukrainian and Russian.


Primary Sources: Feminism in Cuba, 1898-1958

The Library recently acquired Feminism in Cuba, 1898-1958 a digital archive of documents relating to feminists and the feminist movement in Cuba between Cuban independence and the end of the Batista regime.

According to the collection description, “in the decades following its independence from Spain in 1898, Cuba adopted the most progressive legislation for women in the western hemisphere. This collection provides a documentary explanation of how a small group of women and men helped to shape broad legal reforms, by describing their campaigns, the version of feminism they adopted with all its contradictions, and contrasts it to the model of American feminism.”

The archive includes a wide range of primary sources, including letters, journal essays, radio broadcasts, and personal memoirs.


Primary Sources: Al-Ahram Digital Archive

Collage of front pages Founded in 1875, Al-Ahram (الأهرام‎, “The Pyramids”) is one of the longest-running newspapers in the Middle East. It has long been regarded as Egypt’s most authoritative and influential newspaper, and one of the most important newspapers in the Arab world, with a circulation of over 1 million. Prior to 1960, the newspaper was an independent publication and was renowned for its objectivity and independence. After being nationalized by President Nasser in 1960, Al-Ahram became the de facto voice of the Egyptian government and today the newspaper is managed by the Supreme Council of Press.


Primary Sources: New content from ProQuest

Through an arrangement with the California Digital Library and ProQuest, the Library has access to additional historical digital archives, including:

The historical newspaper holdings have also been expanded to include: