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Tommy Nixon
Humanities Reference Librarian
tommy_nixon@unc.edu
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L.C. Call Nos.

This Library of Congress classification system holds true for any library in the world using the LC system. For example, Romance language dictionaries will always be classed in the PCs, while English language dictionaries will always be classed in the PEs. General literature will be in the PNs, Romance language literartures in the PQs, British literature in the PRs & American literature in the PSs.

Map of Davis Reference

Use this Map to find books in Davis Reference.

Call No. Locations in Davis

Use this Location Guide to find books in Davis.

Carolina BLU Campus Delivery Service BLU Logo

Through the Carolina BLU Delivery Service, you can request to have books and articles available at any of the UNC-CH campus libraries, as well as books and articles requested through interlibrary loan, delivered to the campus library most convenient to you.

Primary Texts

The focus of this page is primarily on literary & related texts, news sources, etc. For a broader approach, consult the Finding Primary Source Documents subject guide.

Literary Texts

This is a very small sample of the literary digitization projects that are currently available. For individual authors or for freely available projects, it is often easy to simply Google the terms when "fishing" for authors, e.g. Blake Archive; Whitman Archive; Dante Project (retrieves several projects); Victorian Women Writers, etc. This is an additional sample of Related Sites for English/Comparative Literature.

Literature Online (LION)
LION is a major database of English language literary texts comprised of over 350,000 poems, plays, and novels, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present. It is possible to search for words & phrases, by an individual author or authors, by works, or by Individual Collections within LION, e.g., Early English Prose Fiction (1500-1700). NB: search either Authors or Texts for the primary literary texts.

Online Text Collections in Western European Literature
WESS WEB provides a useful collection of Western European texts.

ARTFL Project (American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language)
ARTFL is comprised of several projects that includes dictionaries & encyclopedias. ARTFL-FRANTEXT is the main ARTFL Database, comprising more than 2,900 French language texts spanning from the 12th through the 20th centuries. There are also other databases: Provençal Poetry; French Women Writers; Textes de Français Ancien; & a database of 1,780 vernacular Italian texts dated prior to 1375,Opera del Vocabolario Italiano.

ADMYTE [CD-ROM] : Archivo digital de manuscritos y textos españoles. Ministerio de cultura, Biblioteca nacional. Madrid : Micronet, 1992-
Computer version of significant Spanish manuscripts and published texts before 1615.
Davis Reference Electronic Archive 10-81

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Classical, Patristic, & Philosophical Texts

Thesaurus Linguae Gracae
The Thesaurus Linguae Gracae is a collection of digitized literary texts in Greek from the time of the poet Homer in the 8th Century B.C.E. to the fall of Byzantine Empire in 1453. It currently includes over 3700 authors and 12,000 works. Ultimately, the goal is to create a digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present.

J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Graecae
J-P Migne Patrologiae Graecae is the electronic version of Migne's Patrologiae Graecae. PG contains more than 160 volumes of Greek material (with Latin translations) relevant to the study of the history of the Christian Church from its beginnings through the Council of Florence in 1439.

Patrologia Latina Database
The Patrologia Latina Database [PLD] is the searchable full-text database of the Patrologia Latina, which, with the Patrologia Graeco-Latina, make up the Patrologiae Cursus Completus, one of the most important collections of Western philosophical and theological writing. Compiled and edited by the extraordinary nineteenth-century scholar and priest, Jacques-Paul Migne, the Patrologia Latina covers the works of the Latin Fathers from Tertullian (around 200 AD) to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216. In 221 volumes it includes most major and minor Latin authors and the most influential works of late ancient and early medieval theology, philosophy, history and literature.

Library of Latin Texts
For the forseeable future, Patrologia Latina and LLT will be complementary. The PL is more complete, but is based on Migne's 19th century editions. The LLT is comprised of current editions based on recent scholarship.

Past Masters
A collection of searchable texts from the works of major philosophers. InteLex Corporation's Past Masters series represents the largest collection of philosophy texts in electronic format in the world. These works serve the needs of the scholarly community in philosophy by providing cohesive digital collections of excellent editions, in both original language and in English translation, using meticulous text conversion processes. They provide scholars with significantly-enhanced and highly-flexible access to classic texts by Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, J. L. Austin, A. J. Ayer, Bentham, Berkeley, Collingwood, Darwin, Davidson, Descartes, Dewey, Hegel, Hume, Kant, Leibniz, Locke, Nietzsche, Ockham, Pierce, Plato, Sidgwick, and Wittgenstein.

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English & American Publication

The Englsih Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) is an index rather than a digital collection of texts. However, it will actually index some items that have not been or will not be digitized in the following collections. Therefore, it is the most complete & up-to-date index for materials published in Britain & her colonies for the period 1473-1800.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) [1473-1700]
EEBO reproduces images of over 125,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England and her colonies in any language between 1473 and 1700, and in English worldwide for this period. Although the searcher is able to view the digital images of the texts, for the majority of texts only the bibliographic record is indexed. When the project is completed, approximately 25,000 texts will be fully searchable. For details of the status of the project, see About EEBO.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
The Eighteenth Century Collections Online [ECCO] provides remote access to 33 million full-text images and text-searchable pages of nearly 150,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701-1800.

Archive of Americana
Archive of Americana is a rich collection of primary source materials for in-depth study of the history of the United States.
Component parts include:
America's Historical Newspapers, about 2000 titles from 1690 to 1920s
Early American Imprints Series I and II ["Evans" & "Shaw Shoemaker"], over 70,000 printed works from 1639 to 1820.
American Broadsides and Ephemera, over 30,000 documents from 1639 to 1900.

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Newspapers & Periodicals

The following collections and individual newspapers are some of the most important ones. There are many others, so for a fuller list consult the News category within E-Research Tools.

Times (London) Digital Archive [1785-1985]
The Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985 is a full-image online archive of every page in the complete run of the world's oldest continuously published newspaper. For more recent issues of the Times,search LexisNexis Academic.

Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers
The 19th Century British Library Newspapers collection contains full runs of 48 newspapers specially selected by the British Library to best represent nineteenth century Britain. This new collection includes national and regional newspapers, as well as those from both established country or university towns and the new industrial powerhouses of the manufacturing Midlands, as well as Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Special attention was paid to include newspapers that helped lead particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule. The penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes are also present in the collection.

British Periodicals
British Periodicals I and II includes the searchable full text and facsimile page images of 500 periodicals published between 1681 and 1921. BP I & II is searchable individually or with Periodical Archive Online (cf. below) and includes reviews as well as general articles.

Periodicals Archive Online (PAO)
Not limited to British & American publications, Periodicals Archive Online offers access to international, scholarly literature in the humanities and social sciences disciplines from 1802 to 1995 (approximately 600 journals from the U.S., Britain, and Western Europe). PAO is actually a full-text searchable subset of PIO . PAO and British Periodicals may be searched individually or together.

America's Historical Newspapers
America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1900 provides access to hundreds of thousands of newspaper issues in Early American Newspapers Series I and Series II.

New York Times Historical Newspaper
The New York Times provides full-text and full-image newspaper articles covering the entire publishing history of the newspaper, from 1851 to the recent past. One of seven historical American newspapers now searchable via ProQuest Historical Newspapers (below).

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Search seven historic newspapers together: The Atlanta Constitution (1868 to 1929), the Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986), the Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1986), the New York Times (1851 to 2 or 3 years ago), the Washington Post (1877 to 1990), the Wall Street Journal (1889 - 1992), and the Baltimore Sun (1837-1985).

American Periodicals Series Online
The 'American Periodicals Series Online' contains 1,100 primary-source journals published between 1741 and 1900.

America's Newspapers
America's Newspapers is the most comprehensive U.S.newspaper resource available. It includes the complete electronic editions of 827 newspapers. Coverage varies, but most sources are fairly current, post-1980s.

LexisNexis Academic
Provides full-text access to general, regional and international news, company news and financial information, legal information, and other topics such as biographical information. Coverage varies, but most is post-1970s. Does provide full text of some foreign language newspapers.

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This page was last updated Monday, August 02, 2010.