New Resource Spotlight: Project Muse Literature Ebook Collection

Exciting news! The UIUC library recently acquired Project Muse’s 2020 and 2021 Literature eBook collection. The collections are international in scope, represent the highest quality scholarship published by academic presses throughout the United States, and include literary criticism and literary theory, biographies of authors, and fiction/poetry from before 1950.

In total, this acquisition includes approximately 700 titles, providing patrons with convenient access to new and relevant scholarship. Access Project Muse through UIUC here.

These ebooks are now available to browse and read.  You can find a full list of the titles in each collection here.

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Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles

University of Illinois users have trial access to the reference resource Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles through the end of March.

This project describes itself as “a new kind of electronic resource: a history of women’s writing in Britain uniquely structured to be searchable and displayable in new ways.” With concise and exhaustively-cited biographies and works summaries, its nearly 1,300 entries range from Sappho to J.K. Rowling and everyone in between, including some male authors in addition to the content primarily having to do with women’s writing.

The project also includes several innovative features, including a tagging structure that helps indicate primary influences on women’s writings and lives, a wide and diverse range of subjects, and customizable chronological timelines that indicate major events in the history of women’s writing in a given period. There are also extensive bibliographies drawing on both popular and scholarly sources, in addition to a robust link structure connecting related entries via shared terms.

Take a look at Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles and please let us know if you find it useful!

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Featured Database: Electronic Enlightenment

The UIUC Library has just acquired a new database, Electronic Enlightenment. The database, which is a project of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, archives nearly 60,000 pieces of correspondence and other documents from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.

These resources allow you to see “the complex web of personal relationships in the early modern period and the making of the modern world.” Electronic Enlightenment allows users to search in a variety of ways, including “letters,” “lives,” “sources” and “annotations” and you can also browse through different categories to get a general feel of the scope of the collection.

What sets this database apart is its wide-ranging coverage, as the correspondence represents over forty nations, spanning Europe, Asia and the Americas.

This resource is limited to UIUC affiliates and only five simultaneous users can be logged on at one time.

You can access Electronic Enlightenment here.

Finally, you can check out this and the other databases we have listed in our Major e-Resources list.

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Literatures and Languages Library is Now Open!

The new UIUC Literatures and Languages Library is now open! We are located in 225 Main Library and accessible through the entrance at the south end of the Reading Room in 200 Library (and not through the north-south corridor).

Our reference collection and recent periodicals are located in the south end of the Reading Room. We are open Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 9 a. m-5 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 1-5pm.

The Literature and Languages Library supports research, teaching, and learning of faculty, undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of disciplines relating to the study of English and Western European literature and languages, comparative literature, cinema studies, linguistics, and translation studies.

The Library acquires print and electronic research materials in these disciplinary areas; offers reference assistance in person, via email and through electronic chat; provides individual and group instruction; and engages in outreach to the local community.

We have a new website highlighting our collections and services at http://www.library.illinois.edu/llx/.

Please stop by for a visit!

Paula Carns, Head, Literature and Language Library
Bob Cagle, Cinema Studies and Media Services Specialist
Harriett Green, English and Digital Humanities Librarian
Janice Pilch, Germanic Languages and Literature and Linguistics Librarian
Caroline Szylowicz, Kolb-Proust Librarian and French Subject Specialist
Tony Hynes, Senior Staff Specialist

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