This year’s welcome back newsletter for those working in the Romance languages focuses on digital and print resources. For the most up-to-date information on the UC Berkeley Library’s services, please continue to check the Library’s Get Help page.
A substantial run of the Spanish weekly film magazine Cinegramas: Revista Semanal (1934-36) was acquired months before the Covid pandemic hit but can now be consulted in The Bancroft Library. It ceased publication with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936.
Digital resources are regularly added to the Library’s holdings. Here are some noteworthy ones acquired in and/or related to the Romance languages this past year:
Beckett Digital Manuscript Project – Digitized collection of Irish author Samuel Beckett’s original manuscripts, as well as a digitized collection of his personal library with his annotations.
BiGLI Online – Online version of the fundamental print bibliography and discovery tool for Italian language and literature. Includes texts, critical and historical surveys, philogical and linguistic notes, essays, monographs, bibliographic reviews, etc. (1981-present).
Brill’s Medieval Reference Library (MRLO) – Contains over 4,000 entries and 200 plus illustrations covering pre-modern European history and culture. The database includes complete coverage of four medieval studies encyclopedias: Encyclopedia of Medieval Chronicle, Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450, Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, and Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Searches can be performed across encyclopedias or limited to one title.
Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, 1959- Primary-source collection of ca. 45,000 fully-searchable documents from the Casa de las Américas in Havana, documenting the culture and cultural relations of Revolutionary Cuba and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Includes articles, newspaper clippings, cable messages, interviews, conference memorabilia, etc. This collection is Part 1: Casa y Cultura” of the so-called Archivo Vertical held in the library of the Casa de las Américas. (Brill) [1959 to present]
Encyclopedia of Semiotics – Encyclopedia and guide to concepts in semiotics, sign theory, and cultural studies such as theories, theorists, schools of thought, issues in communications, cognition, and cultural theory. (Oxford University Press)
International Directory of Medievalists – A directory listing names and addresses of approximately 15,000 medievalists and scholars in fields relating to the Middle Ages in 70 countries. This online title continues the print edition.
Italian Reformation Online – Collection of primary texts from the Italian Reformation digitized from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. Selection of more than 100 rare works offers a synopsis and theological profile of the diversity of the printed manifestations of the Protestant Reformation in the Italian states. (Brill) [15th-17th centuries]
Latin American Anarchist and Labour Periodicals Online – This collection contains the periodicals that have been accumulated by the Austrian anarchist, historian and collector Max Nettlau (1865-1944), together with a number of later additions, held at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam. The collection of 971 titles provides a richness of documentation pertaining explicitly to the formative anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist episode in the history of Latin American labor movements. The collection contains numerous rare, and in many cases, unique titles that are also discoverable individually through OskiCat. Included, among many others, are the Argentine periodicals La Protesta, La Vanguardia and Acción Obrera; the Brazilian O Exempio, Jornal do Povo and Battaglia; the Chilean Voz del Mar; and the Mexican Ariete, Redención Obrera, Revolución Social and El Sindicalista. (Brill) [1890-1920]
Routledge Encylopedia of Modernism – The REM is a cross-disciplinary resource for students and researchers covering several subject areas: literature, architecture, visual arts, music, dance, theatre, film and intellectual currents. Over 1,000 articles and over 100 images are included. Browsing by subject, movement and place is available to find information across fields and topics.
All new databases are listed on the Library’s A-Z Databases page.
Two years ago, the Institute of European Studies established a special fund to support the UC Berkeley Library in acquiring materials in or about less commonly taught European languages (LCTLs). Students, both undergraduate and graduate, lecturers and faculty who wish to use library materials (books, ebooks, graphic novels, dissertations, DVDs, etc.) in a European LCTL and published in Europe that are currently not available on the Berkeley campus, can fill out the Library Recommendation Form and mention “IES LCTL Support” in the Comments section.
This support only applies to LCTLs that are still spoken today in Western, Northern, or Southern Europe (i.e. all European languages with the exception of German, French, Italian and Spanish); no support will be given for classical or extinct languages nor for Slavic and other Eastern European languages supported by the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
A few examples of titles acquired last year include:
