ENGL 666 - Histories of the Book
Histories of the Book
The resources listed below are merely starting points. The library can provide many more resources specific to a particular topic area. Most of the electronic resources listed below are library databases and e-journals accessible from the Libraries’ homepage at http://library.tamu.edu.
Library Catalogs
LibCat, the TAMU Libraries' online catalog includes the materials (books, journals, videos, documents and other materials) that the Libraries hold. If we do not own what you need, you can request specific materials (books, journal articles, book chapters, etc.) via Get it for me.
WorldCat Catalog of books and journals, the contents of over 14,000 research libraries, mainly in North America. Anything found on WorldCat that is not available in Evans Library can be ordered through Interlibrary Services or Get it for me.
RLIN Catalog of materials from Research Libraries Group, it includes archival materials and rare editions. It provides access to the RLIN Bibliographic File which reflects the collections of major research, academic, and national libraries; archives and museums; law, medical, and theological libraries; art and music libraries; area studies collections; public and corporate libraries; historical societies and book clubs. It also provides access to the English Short Title Catalogue, containing records from 1473 to 1800, for items of all types published in Great Britain and its dependencies or in English anywhere in the world from the beginnings of print through the 18th century. This system is mediated, so an appointment will need to be made with a librarian. http://endeavor.rlg.org.
British Library Catalogue lists over twelve million items in the British Library's outstanding collections.
Copac is a union catalogue. It provides access to the merged online catalogues of 24 major university research libraries in the UK and Ireland, plus the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the National Library of Wales/Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru.
Archival Materials
RLIN and Worldcat may provide access to some archival collections, and the Gale Dictionary of Literary Biography (see below) often lists the location of major collections of papers and manuscripts. In addition, these databases may also provide good sources of information.
ArchivesUSA is a current directory of 5,596 repositories and over 154,000 collections of primary source material housed across the United States.
UK Archives Hub The Archives Hub provides a single point of access to descriptions of archival collections that are available for research in universities and colleges. Anyone may use the Hub. The Hub includes descriptions for the archives of a wide range of individuals, families, and organizations, from medieval times right up to the present day. The Hub does not include the text or images of the archival collections described here - only their descriptions.
UK Access to Archives The A2A database contains catalogues describing archives held throughout England and dating from the 900s to the present day. A2A does not yet offer a full description of all the archives in England, but it is regularly updated, so revisit often for newly-included catalogues. The A2A database is regularly updated, and catalogues over 8.5 million filed items from 390 record offices and other repositories.
INDEXES TO SCHOLARLY RESOURCES FOR BOOK HISTORY AND CULTURE AND RELATED TOPICS (SOME FULL-TEXT)
You can browse through specific issues of e-journals to find articles but the most efficient way to find journal articles is to use a database or index. The databases listed below will help get you started in your search for articles. Additional databases can be accessed using the E-Resource Locator and/or the Browse E-Resources by Subject tools.
There are many more valuable sources available in print from the Texas A&M University General Libraries. Access is available from anywhere in the tamu.edu domain (including campus, dial-up via TAMUnet or by using the proxy server).
MLA International Bibliography Online 1920s - present
International coverage of literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore indexed from over 4,000 journals, series, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies.
Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature An electronic index of critical articles and book reviews on language and literature in English back to 1892. The print index of article citations on English language and literature covers published articles from 1920 to present.
WEB OF SCIENCE
Electronic version of the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Science Citation Index. Covers only the top journals of the included fields. Contains book reviews. Access to 1966.
WILSON PERIODICAL INDEXES
H. W. Wilson Co. publishes several indexes and databases of interest including: Humanities, Social Sciences, Book Review Digest, for scholarly materials, and the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature for general interest topics. All Wilson databases can be searched individually or in combination (some browsers require the user to scroll down for all options). Electronic access for most Wilson resources only goes back to the 1980s. However, the "Reader's Guide Retrospective" and "Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective" both index popular and scholarly periodicals from the late 19th century and offer excellent access to primary source material for most of the 20th century. NOTE: Please be aware that this link goes to the Wilson OmniFile as the default search. To search other Wilson indexes, de-select the OmniFile and select the desired resource(s). Other Wilson databases of note include:
ITER: GATEWAY TO THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE
Scholarly literature in Medieval and Renaissance literature, history, and related topics.
BREPOLIS MEDIEVAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Scholarly literature on Medieval topics. This resource includes access to Brepol's International Medieval Bibliography - Online (IMB), Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale, and International Directory of Medievalists. A partial print version of the IMB is available in the Reference Department.
PERIODICALS CONTENTS INDEX: PCI
A general database similar to WilsonWeb. Covers general and scholarly periodicals from 1770-1993. Contains many full-text articles.
ACADEMIC SEARCH COMPLETE: EBSCO
A general database similar to WilsonWeb. Covers general and scholarly periodicals for the past twenty-five years. Contains many full-text articles.
PROQUEST DISSERTATIONS AND THESES
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) includes records of master’s theses and doctoral dissertations written at most American research universities (and selected international institutions) since the mid-nineteenth century. Most entries are from American universities, but an increasing number of international institutions are being added to this resource. From 1994 to date, many of the dissertations are available in full text.
America: History and Life Contains articles, book reviews, and select dissertations, from over 2000 scholarly and professional journals in History since 1964. Topics range from culture to politics to pre-historical sites. Covers United States and Canadian historical topics from pre-history to the present.
Historical Abstracts Contains articles and book announcements from over 2000 scholarly and professional journals in History. Contains articles published since 1964 on a wide variety of international topics since 1450.
Hand Press Book Database includes records for European printing of the hand-press period (c. 1455-1830) from the Consortium of European Research Libraries.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database indexes critical articles and reviews in science fiction, fantasy and horror from 1878 to present.
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals is the premiere research tool for 19th century studies, providing citation access to major periodicals from 1824 through 1900.
Databases of Interest
Early English Books Online (EEBO) From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this incomparable collection contains over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection. Additionally, the Early English Books Tract Supplement provides an exceptional perspective on many aspects of 16th and 17th-century British life. This collection is partially full-text, with more materials being added regularly. Of the materials listed in EEBO which are not full-text, citations are made to a microfilm collection. Books in EEBO and the Early English Books microfilm collection are also listed on LibCat.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) Text Creation Project: The Text Creation Partnership is an international initiative to create structured SGML text files for the materials listed in the Short-Title Catalogue. The encoded text will offer unparalleled search access to the works whose page images are already available in Early English Books Online. Because current optical character recognition (OCR) technology cannot read early modern printing with adequate efficiency, each text must be re-keyed as it is encoded. The resulting text files will then be linked to the EEBO page images, allowing users to both perform keyword searches and see the features of the original.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This is a massive digitization project that when complete will allow electronic access to circa 150,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800 (predominately in Britain). Segments to be included are: History and Geography; Social Science; Fine Arts, Music, Art & Architecture; Medicine, Science, & Technology; Literature and Language; Religion and Philosophy; and Law.
Early American Imprints, Series 1. Evans (1639-1800) Based on Charles Evans' American Bibliography, this digital project contains works published in North America (especially in the colonies that later became the United States) during the 17th- and 18th- centuries. This remarkable undertaking offers a comprehensive look at all aspects of life in Colonial and Early Republic times.
Early American Imprints, Series 2. Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1820) A continuation of the Evans’ Bibliography by Shaw and Shoemaker. Contains similar types of resources as Evans’ for the first two decades of the 19th century.
AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES (APS) ONLINE
A selection of periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals.
EMPIRE ONLINE
Bringing together approximately 70,000 images of original manuscript and printed documents from libraries and archives around the world between 1492 and 1969, Empire Online is fully searchable and offers thematic essays by leading scholars, embedded with hypertext links which relate directly to the documentary evidence provided.
MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
Also known as the Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, this resource provides digital facsimile images of 61,000 works of literature on economic and business published from 1450 through 1850. Full-text searching on more than 12 million pages provides researchers unparalleled access to this vast collection of material on commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade and transport.
19th CENTURY MASTERFILE
Originally an electronic version of W.F. Poole’s Index to Nineteenth Century Literature, this database has expanded to cover a wide variety of sources from the 1800s. Many of the popular periodical titles from the nineteenth century are covered here. This database has recently added selected full-text items.
DEFINING GENDER
Five centuries of advice literature for men and women from 1450 to 1910. This new online project brings together approximately 60,000 images of original manuscript and printed material, including a strong core of documents such as ballads, cartoons and pamphlets, diaries, advice literature, medical journals, conduct books and periodicals.
EVERYDAY LIFE AND WOMEN IN AMERICA, c1820-1900
This digital collection comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes. The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men, as well as emphasizing contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Scholarly Journals
There are thousands of journals available online through the Texas A&M University Libraries. All the Libraries’ e-journals are accessible via the Libraries’ new E-Resource Locator and via LibCat. If the journal you are looking for is not available electronically, you may request the article you need through Get it for me.
Selected Online Titles
You can browse the table of contents of the titles below for articles but the most efficient way to search for articles is through the use of the databases listed in the above section.
Selected Journals in Book History and Culture
The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information
Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text
Convergence: the Journal of Research into New Media
The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
Selected Web Sites
Secondary Sources on Book History and Bibliography
Book History Online
Book History Online (BHO) is designed and maintained by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands, in co-operation with national committees in countries all over the world. BHO is a database in English citing books and articles on the history of the printed book worldwide. It is based on ABHB, the Annual Bibliography of the History of the printed Book and Libraries. This annual book publication (published under the auspices of the Committee on Rare Books and Manuscripts of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) is produced in collaboration with editors in more than 30 countries. The database contains over 33,600 records. The files can be searched by names of authors, editors, title words (including periodicals), classification, geographical keywords, names of persons (printers, publishers etc.), firms and institutions, and by subjects and words in annotations.
Studies in Bibliography
Scholars can search or browse the full text of this important resource for scholarly articles on bibliography and textual criticism. Each year Studies in Bibliography presents a wide range of scholarly articles on bibliography and textual criticism. This covers 1948 to the present.
Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing
The SHARP Web includes information about SHARP, its publications and activities, and also has a lengthy list of links to web resources, including publishers’ records, online research resources, book history projects and scholarly societies, online exhibits, teaching resources in the history of book culture, programs in book history, publishers’ series in book history, and selected journals.
The Book Trade
British Book Trade Index
The British Book Trade Index (BBTI) is an index of the names and brief biographical details and trade details of people who worked in the book trade in England and Wales and who were trading by 1851. The National Library of Scotland maintains a separate Scottish Book Trade Index.
Canadian Book Trade and Library Index
The objective of the Canadian Book Trade and Library Index database is to provide a comprehensive record of individuals and organizations involved in the book and allied trades in Canada. The database currently focuses on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Records have been created for individuals such as printers, booksellers, librarians, and paper makers and for organizations such as publishing houses, libraries, and press clubs.
19th Century American Children’s Book Trade Directory
Based upon the unparalleled collection of Children's Literature held at the American Antiquarian Society, this directory contains 2,600 entries documenting the activity of individuals and firms involved in the manufacture and distribution of childrens books in the United States chiefly between 1821 and 1876.
Scottish Book Trade Index
The Scottish Book Trade Index represents an index of printers, publishers, booksellers, bookbinders, printmakers, stationers and papermakers based in Scotland, from the beginnings of Scottish printing to ca. 1850.
The Physical Book: Bindings, Watermarks, Etc.
The Art of Books: German Decorative Trade Bindings from Collections of the University of Wisconsin-Madison 1860's-1920
This virtual collection demonstrates types and styles of decorative bindings used on German books of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Also included is supporting information about trade bookbinding in Germany. All materials are drawn from the collections of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur
This database indexes photos of artworks and architecture. "One of the truly great European visual treasure boxes, the Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur, part of Foto Marburg, hosts an astounding 1.6 million images, around half of them art images, and thousands in full color." This includes not only traditional works of art, but also coins, sculptures, book bindings and other realia. All the search screens are in German.
Database of Bookbindings (British Museum)
This database is a finding aid to the British Library's bookbinding collections. It includes information and images for selected items from the Library's rich collection of fine bindings of books printed in western Europe from the fifteenth century to date. There is also a selection from the valuable bookbindings collections of the Library's partner, the National Library of the Netherlands. The database is a work in progress.
Gravell Watermarks Database
In the Spring of 1995, Thomas L. Gravell and the University of Delaware Library agreed to participate with Daniel Mosser and Ernest W. Sullivan, II to make The Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Collection of photographic reproductions of over 7,000 watermarks in paper made between 1400 and 1835 available as a searchable database.
Publishers' Bindings Online 1815-1930: The Art of Books 1815-1930
PBO is a searchable database of decorative trade bindings produced by American publishers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its purpose is to expand awareness of the book as artifact and of the role decorative bindings play in providing a window into historical, cultural, and industrial period of 1815-1930. The project when completed will afford the opportunity to study up to 5,000 decorative bindings from two different physical collections in a single, virtual location. Reflected in the database are the regional, national, and historical development of a vibrant and lively book culture in the United States.
Regesta Imperii
This German-language database indexes materials for the European Middle Ages. Materials cover a variety of subject areas, including archaeology, history, art, literature, music, philology, philosophy, and theology. Currently, there are more than 650,000 titles, ranging from 1500 to today.
Evaluating Information Sources
Think before you click and print! The library has some handouts to help you critically evaluate the information you find on web sites (or any type of information resource). Remember, anyone can publish anything on the Web.
- Evaluating Web Sources: A Checklist
- Critically Analyzing Information Sources
- Checklist: Critical Analysis of Information Sources (to be used with the handout above)
Library Assistance
If you need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to go the Evans Reference Desk for Help. They are located on the 1st floor of the Main Library building. You may also contact them via phone at 845-5741 or via email at lib-help@tamu.edu.
If you want specialized help, you may schedule an appointment with me, as liaison librarian to the Department of English, and I will be happy to help you with your research topic, recommend sources and introduce you to searching some of the electronic materials.
Candace R. Benefiel
Associate Professor
979-862-1044
cbenefie@lib-gw.tamu.edu
