Category: E-resources

Percy Cruikshank’s Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war (1870) in context

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, French, Historical collections, New Acquisitions, Special collectionsLeave a comment

Two years ago, Cambridge University Library acquired a satirical pocket-size (but 3 meters long, once unfolded) Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war by Percy Cruikshank (1870) (8000.e.354). This work is a good complement to the library’s Collection of 1870-71 Franco-Prussian caricatures from a British perspective. In a talk taking place on Thursday 7 March from 5-6pm in the University Library’s Milstein room, as part of the Cambridge History of Material Texts seminar, we are going to present Cruikshank’s panorama and contextualise this work within the author’s creation of other comic cartoons produced in the concertina format.

Panorama of the Franco Prussian War, painted by PC [Percy Cruikshank], London : F. Platts, 185 Fleet Street EC, & Mann Nephews, 39 Cornhill E.C., [1870-71].
Percy Cruikshank, The Comic History of the Russian War, London : Read & Co., 1856-57.

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Ukrainian films to watch on Klassiki over the Christmas break

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, English, UkrainianLeave a comment

The Klassiki film database, to which the University is now in its 3rd year of subscription, has this week published details of four Ukrainian films available (with English subtitles and further reading) from now until 4 January that have been selected by the activist, writer, and chef Olia Hercules. Continue reading “Ukrainian films to watch on Klassiki over the Christmas break” →

Highlight on some CAIRN ebooks purchased by CUL in 2023

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, French, New AcquisitionsLeave a comment

In 2022, Cambridge University Library made its first large purchase of selected French and Francophone CAIRN ebooks, based on reject statistics from the previous few years (i.e. books that readers with a University of Cambridge IP address tried to access unsuccessfully). This provided a valuable addition to the library’s ongoing subscription to the CAIRN French Studies Collection of about 150 periodicals in the Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. This blogpost highlights some of the ebook titles we recently acquired, based on last year’s usage reports (in addition to direct reader requests sent throughout the year).

In terms of subjects, history was well represented, with titles including several works on exploration, colonisation, and independence of former French colonies:

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Early Soviet Cinema Collection and Ukrainian film : the August 2023 Slavonic item of the month

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, ebooks, New Acquisitions, Russian, SlavonicLeave a comment

At the tail end of the 2022/23 academic year, we were able to buy access to East View’s Early Soviet Cinema Collection, which provides digitised copies of 119 books published between 1897 and 1948.  At the moment, there are only very brief author/title records for most of these but current University members can browse them all directly on the East View platform.

“Soviet” can often mean Russian, rather than anything more representative of the Soviet Union; that’s largely the case here.  But while the collection is fully russophone, there is at least some diversity in terms of subject matter, as an examination of the collection’s contents show when looking in particular for coverage of the hugely important Ukrainian film industry. Continue reading “Early Soviet Cinema Collection and Ukrainian film : the August 2023 Slavonic item of the month” →

Doctoral theses about Ukraine

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, ebooks, English, UkrainianLeave a comment

The events of this week, including the first Ukrainian armed foray into Crimea and the likely death of Wagner warlord Prigozhin in a plane crash in Russia, will appear in academic theses and books in due course (articles somewhat more quickly) but we can already see a substantial rise in doctoral students’ focus on Ukraine, in Cambridge, the British Isles, and further afield.  This blog post looks at entries in Cambridge’s repository, in the UTREES database, and in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Abstracting & Indexing Service.

Apollo record

Ukrainian has been a major part of Slavonic Studies in Cambridge for many years now, and its success can be seen in the significant number of Ukraine-focused Slavonic Studies PhDs from just the 2020s so far alone.  The links below go to the University’s Apollo repository, where many of these are fully available.

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History of Modern Russian and Ukrainian Art Online

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, ebooks, New Acquisitions, Russian, Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment

This week, we were able to buy permanent purchase to this long-requested database of Ukrainian and Russian art history books and journals  From the supplier’s promotional material:

The collection documents the history of modern Russian and Ukrainian art. It encompasses critical literature, illustrated books, and art periodicals. It also offers a selection of early 20th century art-related serials. These historical sources of pre- and post-revolutionary art reflect the diversity of artistic thought in the first thirty years of the 20th century.

This is hugely welcome news for our researchers, with requests for this database coming in regularly over the years but with enough money to make the purchase only coming now.  The books and journal issues were scanned from microfilm, so are all in black and white (as many would of course have been originally), which takes a slight shine off the delight, but our students and academics have been clear that this is a collection Cambridge really needs.

Next week, we will load records for the database’s individual titles into iDiscover, but for the moment you can browse the 140-odd books and 30 or so journals (listed at the end of the page the following link takes you to, under Other) directly on the Brill platform:

https://ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/login?url=https://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/history-of-modern-russian-and-ukrainian-art

*illustrations from Anatolʹ Petryt︠s︡kyĭ’s 1929 Teatralʹni stroï

Mel Bach

Frederick Justen and ‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo’: An intriguing Italian print in Cambridge UL’s 1870-71 collection

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Frederick Justen (1832-1906), working at Soho-based Dulau & Co. booksellers, produced different sets of caricatures from the Franco-Prussian and the Commune (1870-71), including some at Cambridge University Library, at the British Library and Heidelberg University Library. A close inspection of one of the prints in the sixth and final volume of Cambridge University Library’s 1870/71 caricatures (KF.3.9-14) shows the challenges raised by the identification of the subjects of the caricatures and suggests that Justen updated the collection as late as October 1878. Digitised in late 2020 and the subject of an online display, some of these prints are currently exhibited in the Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Library. One of the particularly interesting facets of this collection is the existence of similar sets, all produced by Justen. Despite sharing the same red binding, title page and 1872 article from the Atheneum advertising the sets, the various Justen collections are not identical. This diversity provides ample room for investigation, and one entry point is the case of an Italian print in Cambridge’s sixth volume entitled ‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo’, which appears to have been printed much later than any other print found in this compilation.

‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo‘, Cambridge UL, KF.3.14, p. 148

Continue reading “Frederick Justen and ‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo’: An intriguing Italian print in Cambridge UL’s 1870-71 collection” →

Living disability, collecting and researching it academically

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, ebooks, English, Faculty Libraries, French, New AcquisitionsLeave a comment

Meggie Boyle is a 3rd year student of French in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Literature and Linguistics. Earlier this year, she got in touch with us at Cambridge University Libraries with book recommendations for her Year Abroad Dissertation project. She suggested titles that we did not have, and we arranged digital alternate formats for books that were only available to buy in print format, via the Cambridge Libraries Accessibility Services. You can read here about her experience of disability which fueled her dissertation project.

“Disability has dominated my life, not only pervading every part of my physical body, but also seeping into the very core of my being, my mind: I see it in everything I do and everywhere I go.

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