New e-resource: Que s’est-il passé le…? Consultez Retronews

Electronic Collection Management

We are delighted to announce Cambridge University now has full access to “le site de presse de la BnF”, Retronews.

Cambridge students and academics have been interested in Retronews since its inception in 2016, but with full subscription access now following a successful extended trial at the end of 2022, our insights into centuries of French history may now deepen and flourish.

For an excellent introduction to this new resource please see the European Languages Across Borders promotion that describes Retronews in detail.

Retronews subscription provides access to the full, unabbreviated versions of the articles plus long-form research articles. The earliest title, La Gazette de Theophraste Renaudot, dates back to 1631. Retronews adds newly digitized archives to the site each week and Cambridge now contributes to fund the growth of the digitization.  The majority of the newspapers were published between 1881 (the passing of press freedom law) and…

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New E-Resource – Le Monde, 1944-2000

Electronic Collection Management

We are pleased to announce that Le Monde, 1944-2000 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) is now available to Cambridge University members.

The historical archive of Le Monde, considered one of the newspapers of record for France and one of the best-known and most influential publications in the world, is an invaluable resource for exploring the history and culture of France from 1944 to 2000.

Le Monde was created at the request of General Charles de Gaulleas the German army was vacating Paris during World War II. At a timewhen other Parisian newspapers were accused of Nazi sympathies or other political alliances, Le Monde was established for its political independence, and has been ever since. Le Monde is also renowned for its balance in coverage, deep analysis of historical events, and focus on journalistic quality and high intellectual standards.

With cover-to-cover full-page images, article-level indexing and searchable text, users can retrieve all…

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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.

Ukraine and anti-war Russians in ‘Novaia Gazeta’

The first stanza of Bykov’s poem.

Subscribers to this blog will have seen a reblog earlier in the week from the CUL Electronic Collections Management site announcing access to the Russian-language newspaper Novaia Gazeta.

The Russian war against Ukraine was not only the focus of the paper in its final weeks in Russia before it closed but of course also the reason for its closure, as Russian governmental pressure relating to the so-called “special military operation” made it impossible for the newspaper to perform its duties properly.

The paper appears three times in our A-Z databases list (all three here) because East View, the platform via which we have access, provides the years 1994-2021 as a single digital archive, while providing access to the first few months of 2022 as another, and the new Europe edition as a third.  The Europe edition started in Riga in early May, while the last Russian edition appeared in late March, a few days before the atrocities committed in Bucha were revealed.  The latest horrors, including the torture of a Ukrainian POW, are now covered in the most recent Europe issue (but note that an ’18+’ tag is applied to articles with distressing images – take the warning seriously).

Extra Russian eresources now available

East View have opened up access to their Rossiĭskaia gazeta Digital Archive, Novaia gazeta Digital Archive, and Essential Russian Classics e-book collection to Cambridge staff and students until the 31st of July.