Early American Imprints Collection, Series I: Evans

I'm happy to announce that Early American Imprints Collection, Series I: Evans is now available via the GMU Libraries Databases page (http://library.gmu.edu/resources/databases.html).

Evans is a primary source collection of research materials from the 17th & 18th century America. The collection contains digitized books, pamphlets, maps, songs, and broadsides printed in the United States. More information about scope and coverage is available at http://www.readex.com/scholarl/eai_digi.html.

Library of Congress Research Orientations

The Humanities and Social Sciences Division will be offering overview Research Orientations to the Library of Congress on the following dates:

From 10:30-12:00 noon on the following Mondays:

January 23
February 6, 13, 27
March 6, 20, 27
April 3, 17

Evening Sessions from 6:30-8:00 pm:

February 6
March 6
April 3

Jefferson Building, Room G-07 (Use the First Street entrance)

Strongly recommended: Obtain Reader Identification Card in the Madison Building, Room 140, prior to the Orientation session

Due to limited space, registration is required.

Register by phone (202) 707-3370, in person in the Computer Catalog Center, Jefferson Building, first floor, or online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/inforeas/signup.php

Each session includes an introduction to:

* Library of Congress collections
* The Library's reading rooms
* Locating and requesting materials in a closed-stack library
* Conducting research efficiently in the Library of Congress
* Using Library of Congress Subject Headings and other sources for searching accurately by subject
* Using the online and card catalogs
* Electronic resources -- including online databases, CDROMs, and the Internet
* Finding journal citations and call numbers
* Finding published bibliographies and topical indexes in print and electronic formats

For additional information call Kathy Woodrell, 202-707-0945, or Abby Yochelson, 202-707-2138.

Library of Congress Updates

First, the National Book Festival is coming up this weekend (September 24) on the National Mall. I went last year, and it was pretty amazing. You can get more information about it from the Library of Congress web site at http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/

Moreover, The Library of Congress will be holding Research Orientations in the humanities and social sciences from 10:30-12:00 on September 26; October 3, 17, 24; and November 7, 14, 28. They do require registration in advance and strongly recommend that you get a Reader Identification Card first (those are available at Room 140 of the Madison Building). To register, call (202) 707-2138 or see
http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/inforeas/signup.php
I did a tour last year and found it very interesting and helpful!

There's also a Virtual Tour of the Jefferson Building at http://www.loc.gov/jefftour/

New Web Site, National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP)

"The Library of Congress is pleased to announce a new Web site, http://www.loc.gov/ndnp, providing an overview and technical specifications for the development phase of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). This program, a partnership between the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of all U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and digitization of select historic pages. An initial development phase will run through 2007, and will include content from 6 NEH state awardees (University of California, Riverside; University of Florida Libraries, Gainesville; University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington; New York Public Library, New York City; University of Utah, Salt Lake City; and Library of Virginia, Richmond) providing 100,000 pages each of historic material published between 1900-1910. In addition, the Library of Congress will contribute 100,000 pages from its own historic collections, representing the District of Columbia."

http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/

American Periodical Series Online

We just got a new full text collection, the American Periodical Series. It's an amazing collection of full text for American periodicals that were originally published between 1740 and 1900 (including advertisements!). It includes a number of popular and literary titles, and is based on the American Periodicals Series microfiche collection - new titles from the microfiche collection are still being added.

You can get to the American Periodical Series Online from the Mason Libraries' "Databases" page at http://library.gmu.edu/resources/databases.html.

Early Modern Resources web page

I just found this web site today:
http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/

Hosted by Sharon Howard, a post-doc in Wales, it includes a nice portal of links to web sites and articles on early modern culture, literature, and history ("roughly 1500-1800"). There's also a neat blog that includes updates and posted discussions on those topics.

Howard also has a history portal that includes resources on British and Welsh History; History of Crime; Women's History at http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/shhistory/index.htm