NEWS RELEASE • FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 19, 2016
Contacts: Gerald T. Burke, Subject Librarian for Art, English, Music, Philosophy, & Theatre, gburke@albany.edu, (518) 442-3592; Rebecca Mugridge, Interim Dean and Director of Libraries, rmugridge@albany.edu, (518) 442-3568.
University Libraries - University At Albany
Rarely Seen Materials from the 1800s Now Online
Albany, N.Y. (February 19, 2016)–Letters, maps, photographs and other primary source materials from the 1800s—many unknown until as recently as the 1980s—are available to examine online via Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), a new database that has just been acquired by the University Libraries. UAlbany students, faculty, and staff may view NCCO directly by clicking http://gdc.galegroup.com/gdc/ncco?p=NCCO&u=albanyu (or via the "Databases" link or tab on the University Libraries' home page http://library.albany.edu).
NCCO's content—some of it exceedingly rare—is sourced from some of the world's preeminent libraries and archives, including the British Library, Oxford University, the National Archives (UK), and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Materials such as autobiographies of Britain's working class, dispatches from U.S. consuls in Japan, music manuscripts from British musical theatres, and the previously unknown publications of British and French women writers, will be sure to ensconce all scholars firmly in the 19th century.
Digital scholars will be excited to learn that NCCO facilitates data mining and textual analysis. Researchers may download scanned text as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) text files to mine independently. Textual analysis tools, public and private tagging, an annotation feature, Zotero compatibility, and social media sharing help users to organize their research and to share their findings with colleagues, fellow students, and the entire NCCO community.
"We are pleased to meet the requests of our faculty and students for these valuable primary source materials," says Gerald Burke, Subject Librarian for Art, English, Music, Philosophy, & Theatre at the University at Albany Libraries. "This database also complements the subscription we have to the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) database."
"I use ECCO daily for my book in progress and to write all of my articles," says Wendy R. Roberts, NEH Long Term Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society and Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University at Albany. "Without it, I would not be able to produce research pertinent to my field."
Richard Barney, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University at Albany agrees. "I use ECCO constantly, both for teaching and my research, but, as often is the case, there are authors whose publication histories cross the line into 1800," he says "Thus, having NCCO on hand is crucial for being thorough in my work, while making it less necessary to depend on libraries elsewhere to find what I need. NCCO will make it possible to be more efficient in completing my articles or book manuscripts. The prospect of adding NCCO to the library is a genuinely exciting one."
The UAlbany Libraries have purchased access to four NCCO collections:
- British Politics and Society
Includes the papers of British statesmen, Home Office records, ordnance surveys, working class autobiographies, and other unique collections. British Politics and Society is a remarkable resource for scholars looking to explore the political and social history of Britain. Source libraries are the British Library, Oxford University, and The National Archives, Kew.
- Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange
Features primary source collections related to international relations between Asian countries and the West during the 19th century. These invaluable documents—many never before available—include government reports, diplomatic correspondences, periodicals, newspapers, treaties, trade agreements, NGO papers, and more. Documents are sourced from The National Archives, Kew; The National Archives, United States; and other collections.
- British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture
Features a wide range of primary sources related to the arts, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores. These rare documents, many of them never before available, are sourced from the British Library and other institutions. Curation is by experts in British arts history. It covers more than a century, and encompasses both the Georgian and Victorian theatre.
- European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection
The Corvey Collection is one of the most important collections of British Romantic-era writing in existence. The extent of its scholarly significance is indicated by the considerable number of rare publications by British writers (and women writers in particular, whose works comprise over 1,000 of the titles) who were active during the Romantic period. In addition to English-language literary texts, the Corvey Collection of European Literature also includes 3,658 works in French (including more than 500 by women) and 2,653 works in German. While well-known authors are represented in the collection, their works are far outnumbered by those of historically neglected and marginalized authors.
