Cambridge University Library’s trial of RetroNews (French historical newspapers database)

Cambridge University Libraries just started a one-month trial of RetroNews, a database from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which provides access to about 2000 (primarily French) newspaper titles published between 1631 and 1950. Part of its content is available only by subscription, in contrast to the BnF’s freely accessible material on its digital library Gallica (only 150 of the 2000 RetroNews titles are also available on Gallica).

The subscription to RetroNews offers advanced access to the digitised periodicals and advanced search functions, in particular the option to download results in pdf or text format. It should also be possible to extract search results in csv or xls format; and to request the extraction of text and metadata of a specific search. RetroNews provides access to 4000 items of new editorial content produced by academics and journalists, including articles, interviews, videos, and podcasts / readings of the newspaper pieces by professional actors.

French historical and literary sources in large online databases

Cambridge University Library subscribes to many large literary and historical databases: their sources are mainly in English, but they also contain foreign language material. Gale Primary Sources, which encompasses 26 thematic databases, contains lots of resources in French, as well as other languages. They can be accessed on your device anywhere within the University, and from home with the University of Cambridge VPN.

The database “Archives unbound” is particularly interesting for its primary historical material. It covers “topics” such as African Studies; British and European History; Business and Economic History; Cultural Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies; Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Law, Politics, and Radical Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Religious Studies, as well as many others.

Moving online

At the time of writing, the University Library remains open (with reading rooms shut) but it will close its doors to readers at 5pm today until further notice.  Given the situation, it seems rather perverse to promote print material through this blog until the UL is fully operational again.  Over the next few weeks, our posts will instead focus on books, journals, and databases which are available electronically, certainly to University staff and students.

Images from Digitalia

Images from Torrossa

Images from De Gruyter

Last September, I wrote a blog post about foreign-language ebook packages, whose details it might be useful for readers to remind themselves about now: https://europeancollections.wordpress.com/2019/09/23/foreign-language-ebooks/

The Library’s FAQs about library services during the Coronavirus outbreak can be found here: https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/news/coronavirus-faqs

We wish all our readers good health.

Mel Bach

New Europresse subscription: online access to French newspapers and magazines

After receiving very positive trial feedback and approval of the Library Accessions Committee, Cambridge University is now subscribing to the academic version of Europresse, an aggregator which allows online access to many French and Francophone national and regional newspapers and magazines including Le Monde (from 1944), Le Figaro, Libération, L’Humanité, Les Echos, La Tribune ; Le Soir, Le Temps ; Le Parisien, Ouest-France, La Provence ; L’Express, Le Point, Marianne, L’Obs, Le Monde diplomatique etc.

New electronic resources with a European connection

The ejournals@cambridge blog publicises trial access to and purchase of various databases and ejournals, and it is certainly a blog worth following.  Several purchases over the last few months complement our European collections, so this post gives an overview.  The subjects of these new resources span philology, politics, art history, theology, migration studies, history, and bibliography, and their contents are in English and various European languages.

Composite of samples of ephemera from the Euromaidan Protests database