Announcements

Citation Tools Classes

Unabridged Epilogue workshop: Zotero for Graduate Students
Presented by Daniel Becker
Wednesday, April 14, 2021, 12:00 PM
Friday, April 16, 2021, 10:00 AM ET
Online, via Zoom (registration links below)

You probably already know that Zotero—the free, open-source citation management tool recommended by Harvard Library—takes the anxiety out of formatting your citations and bibliographies: no more wondering if that colon ought to be a comma, or if you somehow missed something in your list of works cited. But have you ever wondered if Zotero could do more to assist you in your research process?

This workshop is for you if your answer to that question is “Yes!” Come discuss how to use Zotero for archival research, for example, or how to keep yourself and all of your materials organized, or even to explore how items in your collections are related in sometimes unexpected ways. And please bring your questions—we would like this to be as interactive and conversational as possible, without too much of prepared presentations and demonstrations.

Feel free to register for one or both of these sessions—because we want to tailor the workshop to the interests and questions of participants, it is not unlikely that Wednesday’s session is different from Friday's.

“Prologue to Unabridged” and “Epilogue to Unabridged” workshops are intended for graduate students, with topics specifically designed to complement Unabridged’s January program.

HathiTrust

No date has been set, but HathiTrust Temporary Access will end when the majority of library users are back on campus.  So it should be available for the rest of this semester, but will cease sometime before the beginning of Fall semester.  At present we cannot be more exact.

New Book Mailing Service

The Library has begun a Book Mailing Service for up to 10 books at one time via USPS.  Users are limited to 100 books in total.  Only for books unavailable digitally.  Local people should still use Lamont Pick-up. Request via the Book Mailing Request Form rather than HOLLIS.

New Reading Room

A reading room has been set up in Widener for viewing Houghton, Harvard University Archives, and Widener material that cannot be digitized (the hope is to add other collections in the coming months, but we don't have further details).  At present it is only available to undergraduates and graduate students living in on-campus housing (and therefore in the testing cadence).  Requests from graduate students not in campus housing are considered individually and involve enrollment in the testing cadence.  The reading room occupies the old Periodical Reading Room, recently occupied by Houghton.

Submit  requests through Scan & Deliver in HOLLIS, or by clicking on the request link in HOLLIS or HOLLIS for Archival Discovery for special collections materials from the University Archives or Houghton.  Library staff will first try to fulfill patron requests through digitization.  If requests are unable to be fulfilled through digitization, library staff will reach out to eligible patrons regarding on-site appointments.

Please feel free to follow up with staff at Houghton (houghton_library@harvard.edu), Archives (archives_reference@harvard.edu), Widener Access Services (hl_access_services@harvard.edu).

Remote Microfilm Viewing

A system for remote viewing of microfilm is available.  You make an appointment, and a Widener staff member loads the reels into the machine, which you can access remotely via your home computer.  You may view up to three reels per hour. Request form to remotely view microfilm.

You can often get microfilm via Interlibrary Loan which you can view remotely.

HOLLIS

There has been a change in the display of online periodicals in HOLLIS.  Where there are multiple sources for a periodical, hitting View Online will take you to the preferred source, generally the source offering current issues.  If the issues you need are not available in the preferred source, open the full HOLLIS record, and all the sources are listed at the bottom of the record.

"Undocumented immigrants" replaces "Illegal aliens" in HOLLIS

We thought a recent (and small but important) change to the metadata in the library catalog may be of interest to you. Harvard Library changed the subject terms “Illegal aliens” and “Aliens” to “Undocumented immigrants” and “Noncitizens”, respectively, in the HOLLIS Library Catalog and Harvard Digital Collections, in January 2021.

·         You can see an example of this change in the “Subjects” part of the HOLLIS record for the book Forgotten Citizens.

·        The Harvard Gazette recently wrote about the reason for the change: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/harvard-library-ends-use-of-subject-heading-illegal-alien/.

Brill Databases

You may get an error message when trying to open a database published by Brill.  You can try clearing your cache, switching to another browser, or using private (incognito) in your browser.

Finding Open Access Books and Online Primary Sources

New Slavic Resources Guide

Digital Resources for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies. This guide describes online resources for research in Post-Soviet and Eurasian studies available via Harvard digital platforms or produced and freely accessible outside the Harvard system     --Note the Open Access link on the Archives page. At Please find our list of open access resources for research in Soviet History there is a large list of resources. 

Center for Research Libraries (CRL)

The Center for Research Libraries in Chicago is an important repository of a large variety of material.  A considerable amount is available online.  Search the CRL catalog using the Advanced search which has a Language field. Much is only in print or microfilm for which you fill out an Interlibrary Loan form as usual. You can limit to online material by adjusting Reproduction Type to Online.

For digital items, when you hit the link in the Available Online box (for example), you may find that the digital material is open access and you can look at it. Sometimes you get a “Member Restricted Resource” page. Harvard is a member, but for technical reasons we cannot use the Shibboleth Login that is offered. So what you do is to take the url, say https://dds.crl.edu/crldelivery/13287 and change it to https://dds-crl-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/crldelivery/13287

That is you put .ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/ after the https://dds-crl-edu

If you don’t want to do this manually, there is an app (called the Bookmark) you can insert on your browser bookmarks bar. It’s labelled Check Harvard Library, and it automatically inserts that url fragment when you hit the bookmark. General instructions. Installation is slightly different in different browsers. We can help if you have any trouble.

Sometimes when you hit the link in the Available Online box you are taken to the login page of a different database, for example LLMC (example). Here you go to LLMC in HOLLIS Databases and log in with Harvard Key in the ordinary way

The records in the CRL Catalog can be searched in HOLLIS Everything, NOT HOLLIS Library Catalog, but there is no option for online access.

Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Topic Guides

CRL is often able to digitize microfilm and other material.

Featured E-Resource: Eight Centuries

Eight Centuries (formerly Nineteenth Century Masterfile) includes largely late 18th-early 20th century indexes which are often linked to HathiTrust full text. Offers numerous periodical (general, legal, scientific/technical), newspaper, patent and government document indexes from the US and UK. Eight Centuries has been adding post and pre 19th century material, hence the name change.

Includes, among many others:

  • Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1906)
  • Royal Society Catalog of Scientific Papers (19th century),
  • International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, 1901-1914
  • Hansard's Index to Debates
  • Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, 1066-1803 - published late 18th-early 19th centuries but covers back to 1066
  • Digital Walters Manuscript Collection: Catalog records with links to scans
  • British National Bibliography (pre-1961)

Eight Centuries content. Resources List View lists resources by subject.

New News Resources

Al-Ahram Digital Archive, 1876- .

Japan news digital archive, 1955- .
Previously known as the Daily Yomiuri (1970-2013), the Yomiuri (1958-1970), and Yomiuri Japan news (1956-1958), and Japan news (to 1956).

Rafu Shimpo (L.A. Japanese Daily News) (1904- )

Service Newspapers of World War Two offers newspapers from both Allied and Axis forces

Washington Evening Star (1852-1981)

New E-Resources

General  --  Asia/Australia --  Europe  --  Latin America  --  North America

General

Age of Exploration (c. 1420-1920) offers manuscripts, printed materials, maps, diaries, ships' logs, speeches and films documenting European maritime exploration.

Food and drink in history (16th century- ) offers printed and manuscript cookbooks, advertising ephemera, government reports, films.   Material is from US, UK, and Australian repositories documenting food culture worldwide.

Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange offers visual, manuscript and printed materials documenting trade in chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, wine and spirits.

Human rights documents online (1970s- ) offers publications of non-governmental organizations.

Jus mundi "Search engine for international law and arbitration."

Leisure Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism Offers brochures, guidebooks, photo albums, and tourist ephemera supplemented by printed books, travel agency records, handwritten journals, leaflets, promotional films, and government correspondence documenting European and American working class tourism from 1850 to 1980.

Medical Services and Warfare

Pamphlets from the Harvard College Library  Harvard College Library pamphlet digitization program

Paris Peace Conference and Beyond 1919-1939 documents the treaties of Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Trianon, Sèvres, Lausanne, and Locarno, and the foundation of the League of Nations.  Documenst are from the UK National Archives with personal papers of Lord Robert Cecil and Sir Arthur Balfour from the British Library

Revolution and protest online documents protest movements, revolutions, and civil wars, 18th century to present. Organized around more than 30 events and areas.

World’s Fairs (1851- ) offers official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts

Asia/Middle East/Australia

Foreign Office files for South East Asia, 1963-1980

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East

Area Studies India offers several collections previously only on microfilm: Colonial discourses: series 3: colonial fiction, 1712-1933 -- Curzon, India and empire: the papers of Lord Curzon (1859-1925) from the British Library, London -- The empire writes back: part one: Indian views on Britain and empire, 1810-1915, from the British Library, London -- India during the Raj: eyewitness accounts: diaries and related records describing life in India, 1712-1925 -- India in the age of empire: the journals of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812-1881) from the Bodleian Library, Oxford -- Indian newspaper reports, c. 1868-1942.

South Asia open archives (SAOA) offers materials from the Center for Research Libraries Global Resources Network.  In English and South Asian languages.  Subset of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP).

The Trans-Pacific (1919-1940)  a weekly review of Far Eastern political, social and economic developments, published in Tokyo.

Europe/Russia

Bibliography of the history and archaeology of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages covers AD 500 to the aftermath of the Mongol invasion of 1241. Includes books, articles, chapters from edited volumes, theses and dissertations, as well as regional bibliographies. Updated annually.

The Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe (DALME) is a database of material culture based on household inventories and other textual sources from the period.

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East

Church Missionary Society Periodicals

Codices Vossiani Graeci et Miscellanei Online offers Greek and Latin manuscripts from the library of  Isaac Vossius (1618-1689).

Prosecuting the Holocaust : British Investigations into Nazi Crimes

Literary Print Culture: The Stationer’s Company Archive

Shakespeare’s Globe Archive

The South Sea bubble, 1720 offers resources of Baker Library 

Latin America

Archives of Christian Churches and Organizations in Cuba Online 

Classic Brazilian Cinema Online

North America/Caribbean

America in World War Two : oral histories and personal accounts

Black Empowerment and Unitarian Universalism (1960s-1970s)

Civil rights and social justice (HeinOnline) offers hearings and committee prints, legislative histories, CRS and GAO reports, Supreme Court briefs, and publications from the Commission on Civil Rights. Includes disabled and LGBTQ as well as ethnic and other groups.

Fire Insurance Maps Online (FIMO)

Indigenous Peoples: North America

J. Walter Thompson: Advertising Archive

Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900

Revolutionary War and early America (ProQuest history vault) offers collections from the Massachusetts Historical Society (1721-1860). Largely Colonial Era, Revolutionary War and Early National Period, with some collections extending to the Civil War era.

Sex and Sexuality (1947-1993) offers correspondence, research papers and records from the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections

Socialist Party of America Papers (History Vault)

Trade Catalogues and the American Home