National Modern Languages Training Day
9 December 2008
9.30 | Registration and coffee |
10.00 | Introduction |
10.15 | Introduction to General Reference Works and Electronic Resources |
11.00 | Workshops (choice of 5 sessions) |
| Hispanic Workshop Subjects covered will include: library catalogues, bibliographies, literature, Catalan, author bibliographies with subject indexes, national bibliographies, descriptive bibliographies, lesser-known language dictionaries, periodicals, indexes to periodicals, manuscripts, journals with bibliographies, theses. Resources for contemporary Latin America Focusing on the extensive Latin American related materials and the range of resources – from manuscripts to electronic format – available at the British Library. The aim of the presentation is to familiarise research postgraduates with the Latin American collections held at the Library and to explore interdisciplinary approaches to research in the field of Latin American studies. Resources for the study of the Spanish Civil War An overview of contemporary resources across the Library's collections for the study of the Spanish Civil War, covering printed books, official publications, newspapers, manuscripts, sound recordings and philatelic material. A number of free web resources will also be included. Relevant to students of both literature and history. |
| French Workshop An introduction to resources for French studies structured around the resolution of common bibliographical problems. To include how to find books in libraries, how to locate periodicals, how to trace periodical articles and theses. Also a presentation on the British Library's French collections with an emphasis on printed books, but also covering newspapers, manuscripts, sound recordings and philatelic material. French Revolutionary collections in the British Library A presentation of the Library's world-class collection of publications relating to the French Revolution-second only to that in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). A historical overview of the collection, a description of the Library's thematic guide to the collection and guidance on how to use Explore the British Library to access the material. An exploration of the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) to identify material relating to British reactions to the French Revolution. Also a review of the catalogues of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and a look at Gallica, the BNF's collection of digitised texts, to identify full-text material relating to the French Revolution. |
| Italian Workshop This workshop is about helping you gain an understanding of the vast range of resources the Library holds for Italianists. Send your questions in advance and our curatorial team will do their utmost to help you unlock its many treasures and use its many facilities for your research. The British Library’s Italian collections attract Scholars from around the world. Our collection of Italian incunabula (books printed before 1501) number 4,460 and is the finest collection of in the world and of these, no fewer than 92 are unique. Our collections of printed books range from the sixteenth through to the twenty-first century and span across the humanities and the social sciences. We have an extensive Italian periodicals and serials collection that includes some rare Italian newspapers (about 1,000 and 600 separate titles respectively). |
| Slavonic and Eastern European Workshop The workshop will introduce some important research tools and bibliographies that can be useful for general and more specific topics (e.g., studies of rare Slavonic books and manuscripts on the one hand and political parties or Samizdat press on the other). It will cover the specifics of dealing with different types of tools in a variety of formats available in the British Library collections and through other free sources. Russian émigré publications in the British Library Russian émigré publishing up till recently has been politicised and reflected the views, opinions and aesthetic manifestations that could not appear freely in the Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Union. The case study will show the ways the collections were created in the BL, the people who played significant roles in this process (including the Library curators and booksellers), and the types of books acquired. At the moment we continue to acquire books in Russian published by Diaspora. |
| German Workshop An overview of the history and strengths of the British Library's German collections, with an introduction to some useful finding tools and other bibliographical resources, both printed and online. Nazi era material including SHAEF collections The British Library has strong collections of material from the Nazi period, as well as Nazi and pre-Nazi propaganda material from before 1933. Some was acquired in the 1930s, but much has been acquired since, especially material confiscated by the Allies after the war. This includes the kind of books not usually purchased but of interest to today's researchers, such as school textbooks, popular war stories and propaganda pamphlets. |
12.30 | Lunch |
13.30 | Workshops repeated |
15.00 | Panel discussion/Prize Draw |
16.00 | Drinks and networking |
17.00 | Close |
