Author: cpotts
New French ebooks in Cairn.info
This past spring, the UC Berkeley Library added 181 French ebooks to our existing collection from Franco-Belgian vendor Cairn.info. Though they aren’t yet discoverable in OskiCat or in the new UC Library Search unified catalog which launches on July 27, they can be read along with other ebooks and ejournals on the Cairn website.
Publisher du Jour – Al Manar Éditions
Al Manar Éditions is an independent publishing house dedicated to the art and literatures of the Mediterranean with a notable focus on the Arab world. Established in 1996 within the Galerie Al Manar in Casablanca, directed by Alain and Christine Gorius from 1994 to 2003, the editorial house is now based in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, and has published nearly 400 titles to date. Whether in translation or in original language, the majority of their books are in French. Well-known writers in their catalog from the global south include Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Adonis, Abdelkebir Khatibi, Mohammed Bennis, Abdellatif Laâbi, Mostafa Nissabouri, and Salah Stétié. From Europe and among others, there is Sylvie Germain, Jean-Pierre Millecam, Nicole de Pontcharra, as well as Kabila, a French painter of Andalusian Roma origin. Others include Syrian poets Aïcha Arnaout and Maram Al-Masri, Lebanese writers Etel Adnan, Georgia Makhlouf, Leïla Sebbar and Albert Bensoussan, who, by virtue of their family origins and their background, belong to both shores of the Mediterranean, like Anne Rothschild, an Ashkenazi poet and engraver who is often met in Tahar Bekri Ramallah—a Tunisian poet, or Özdemir Ince a—Turkish poet and man of letters as well as the Catalan translator and literary critic Jaume Pont.
Al Manar serves as a reputable vehicle of dissemination for the staggering diversity of thought and creative talent in the Mediterranean region. The UC Berkeley Library is proud to hold more than 40 of its imprints with several of the more precious artists’ books shelved in The Bancroft Library. The publishing house regularly exhibits at the Codex Book Fair and Symposium held biannually in Richmond and Berkeley.
The Last Flower: A Parable in Pictures
Originally published in November 1939, two months after World War II officially began, James Thurber’s The Last Flower: A Parable in Pictures is a graphic novel ahead of its day. Inspired in particular by the Spanish Civil War and the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland, it chronicles the eternal cycles of war, peace, love, and the resilience of one little flower and remains as relevant today as it was then. The text has been translated into dozens of languages worldwide, among them a French translation by Albert Camus and published by Gallimard in 1952. A native of Columbus, Ohio, Thurber was not only a cartoonist but also an author, humorist, journalist, playwright, and celebrated wit who joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1927 where he remained for most of his career.
Reissued by the University of Iowa Press in 2007, the first edition and later edition are temporarily available online to the UC community through the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access service until the UC libraries fully reopen this fall. You can learn more about The Last Flower at the Columbus Public Library’s Art Unbound II exhibition installed in its Carnegie Gallery.
LAUC-B Resolution on the Importance of Diversity in Collections
Last month, the Executive Committee of the Librarians Association of the University of California, Berkeley (LAUC-B) unanimously endorsed a resolution written by its Committee on Diversity stressing the importance of the continued acquisition of print materials during the pandemic and beyond. The statement reflected on temporary changes to the UC Berkeley Library’s collection development policies and the lasting impact they might have. LAUC-B chair Ramona Collins wrote in an email, “[. . .] the focus on acquiring more digital and fewer print resources can lead to further suppression of already underrepresented voices, topics and geographical areas.”
Faced with the prevalence of print publications from the Global South, East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Eurasia, the spectrum of viewpoints collected and preserved by academic libraries risks becoming impoverished. “Strong and diverse collections like Berkeley’s inspire and allow researchers to immerse themselves in cutting-edge discovery and teaching,” reads the statement, “but what happens when the acquisition of diverse resources becomes vulnerable to reduced funding or reprioritization?”
Aligned with the Library’s efforts to build and provide access to collections that help scholars work against racism and discrimination, the resolution was also inspired by statements issued in the past year by library organizations such as the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM), Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and others across the academic library community.
Library updates on Moffitt, NRLF and more
Moffitt Study Space update
The Library has received campus approval to expand the Moffitt study space service begun two weeks ago to include ten rooms reservable for graduate students. It is now implementing the setup and plan to launch the new offering on Monday, April 26. The Library currently offers limited study space on Moffitt Library’s fourth and fifth floors for UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students. At the moment, reservations for seats are offered 9 a.m. through 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and can be made one week in advance.
Norther Regional Library Facility (NRLF)
Starting this week, UC Berkeley Library cardholders may use OskiCat to request unrestricted materials from NRLF for pickup at Moffitt Library via Oski Xpress. Eligible items will be available for pickup approximately four business days after the time of request. Additionally, NRLF’s electronic article delivery service will expand to all UC Berkeley Library cardholders. Patrons can submit an online request for that service via the “Request an electronic copy from NRLF” link that appears in eligible titles in OskiCat. NRLF remains closed for on-site visits until further notice. The Library’s COVID-19 portal will soon be updated with this information.
OskiCat and Melvyl are retiring on July 27th
In case you haven’t heard, both of these catalogs will be replaced by a new a unified discovery and borrowing system called UC Library Search. You’ll be able to search, borrow, and easily renew print materials from any of the ten campuses in the system.
DH Fair 2021 is coming up!
The DH Fair, to be held on Wednesday April 21st, is an annual event that offers the UC Berkeley community the opportunity to share projects at various stages of development, receive invaluable feedback from peers, and reflect on the field more broadly. This year’s events include a keynote speech from Roopika Risam on Digital Humanities for Social Justice, a panel discussion with Tim Tangherlini and Lisa Wymore on computation for analyzing and choreographing dance in the K-pop and folk music genres, and lightning talks.
Expanded eBook collections from Belgium, France, and Italy
The Library continues to acquire print material but processing has been slow for books that don’t ship with MARC records. Notable ebook acquisitions this spring include Cairn (181 new titles), OpenEdition (1608 new titles), and Torrossa (299 new titles). It takes time to format and load metadata but the new ebooks are generally available right away if you go directly through the vendor platforms.
New Book and a Conversation with Suzanne Guerlac from the French Department
Check out this new book by Department of French faculty member Suzanne Guerlac, available in print and as an ebook through the online catalog.
Through an engagement with the philosophies of Marcel Proust’s contemporaries Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, and Georg Simmel, author Suzanne Guerlac presents an original reading of Proust’s magnum opus, Remembrance of Things Past (A la recherche du temps perdu).
On Wednesday, March 10 from 12-1, Professor Guerlac will be a special guest on Berkeley Book Chats hosted online by the Townsend Center for the Humanities.
New publication by Nick Paige from the French Department
Check out this new book by Department of French faculty member Nicholas Paige, available in print and as an ebook through the online catalog.
From introduction:
“This book is about the evolution of French and to a lesser degree English novels – by which I mean French- and English-language novels – from 1601 to 1830. And while evolution is very much at the center of my preoccupations, I do not offer a “story” about that evolution. There is no plot, as we might want if we thought of the novel moving forward, perhaps from birth, episode by episode, toward a resolution, some happy state of stability – as if, in other words, the novel’s own history could be made into a kind of novel.”
“In lieu of a story, Technologies of the Novel offers a quantitative account of the ceaseless yet patterned flux of the novel system over these twenty-three decades.”
“Technologies of the Novel is, then, digital and distant; but it is most certainly not antianalogue or anticlose.”
Six essential Library resources during the pandemic
Millions of ebooks are accessible through the Library and Open Access initiatives such as OpenEdition, and new titles are added daily. The way easiest to find them is by searching OskiCat or Start Your Search from the Library home page.
Featured work: Burningham, Bruce R, editor. Millennial Cervantes : New Currents in Cervantes Studies. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020.
2) HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service
Also known as UC’s emergency ebook service, it provides access to digital versions of millions of the physical volumes held by libraries across the 10-campus University of California system — plus UC’s two expansive off-site library storage facilities.
Featured work: La peste by Albert Camus. Paris: Gallimard, c1947, 2008.
3) Oski Xpress contactless pickup
The Library now provides a contactless pickup service at Moffitt Library for all borrowers who have current Cal 1 or UC Berkeley Library cards. Fourteen libraries are participating in Oski Xpress: Anthropology, Bioscience, Chemistry, Earth Sciences & Map, East Asian, Engineering, Environmental Design, Institute for Governmental Studies, Main (Gardner) Stacks, Mathematics Statistics, Morrison, Music, Physics-Astronomy, and Social Research. Only materials available from the circulating collections of these libraries are available at this time.
Featured work: Intorno a boccaccio/boccaccio e dintorni 2018 : atti del seminario internazionale di studi (certaldo alta, casa di giovanni boccaccio, 6-7 settembre 2018). S. Zamponi, Ed. Ser. Studi e saggi, 205. Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2020.
Due to COVID-19 service disruptions, the Library is not accepting print or other physical materials (such as DVDs) for course reserves for the remainder of 2021. However, the Library is helping instructors identify digital options for their course readings to ensure they remain accessible to all students — whether they are on campus or learning remotely.
Featured work: Bondanella, Peter, and Federico Pacchioni. A History of Italian Cinema. 2nd ed. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, c2009, 2017.
5) In-person research appointments at The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library, home to many extraordinary special collections, is one of two libraries on campus that offers limited research appointments for UC Berkeley faculty and students this spring. Access can be provided to Bancroft Library materials that are housed on-site and that are not available online. Please note that access to Bancroft Library collections housed at the Northern Regional Library Facility (NRLF) is expected this semester but those collections are unavailable at this time.
The newspaper/microfilm collections, housed in Doe Library, can also be accessed through the Moffitt Library by special request.
Featured work: Colette. Chéri. Paris: Arthème Fayard & Cie, 1929.
6) Online research consultations
Although the UCB libraries will be physically closed this semester, we are all working remotely and happy to help you with your research needs. You can schedule a Zoom appointment with subject librarians like myself, email the general library research help line, or chat with a librarian or library specialist 24/7.
See also:
French ebooks from L’Harmathèque
Here’s a list of 350 French ebooks (and a couple in Spanish) acquired last year but just recently batch cataloged. Now available through OskiCat, they are discoverable by author, title, or keyword along with other digital versions by the same publisher L’Harmattan which specializes in topics related to Africa, Europe and the rest of the world. Search by handle “Harmathèque ebooks” to pull up the full list of 1041 titles in Berkeley’s collection.
Ticontre: Teoria Testo Traduzione
In the spirit of Open Access Week worldwide, here’s an open access journal Ticontre: Theory Text Translation published at the Università degli studi di Trento provides a platform for open discussion on the literary text that is not only innovative but also keen to acknowledge core components of the European and American tradition.
With particular attention given to the work of emerging and early career scholars, Ticontre engages with medieval, modern and contemporary literature and with studies that deal with broad diachronic frames. As such, the journal also values investigations that engage with classical literatures within a grounded, progressive and reception-focused theoretical perspective.
Ticontre publishes contributions relating to all aspects of the European and American literary traditions. Given its operation within this critical space, the journal does not prioritize any specific national literary tradition. It promotes dialog rather than divisions, and highlights similarities rather than differences in literary traditions. novelist, poet, short story writer, translator and literary critic.
The current issue is dedicated to Italian writer, translator and literary critic Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) and edited by Giancarlo Alfano, Carlo Tirinanzi De Medici, and Massimiliano Tortora with essays by Marina Bianchi, Sofia Pellegrin, Giuseppe Alvino, Alessandro Amenta, Giuliano Rossi, Thea Rimini, and Luca Cortesi.
