New and recent books by Illinois faculty

One of the most satisfying parts of my job as an academic librarian is to see a research project that started out as a twinkle in someone’s eye appear in the Library as a published book. Here are some new titles by University of Illinois faculty members in the subject areas we collect here in the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library (African American Studies, History, Jewish Studies, Philosophy, and Religious Studies) that we’ve recently acquired (a few are still on order). Congratulations, all! Continue reading “New and recent books by Illinois faculty”

Call for Applications: 2024-2025 Research Travel Grant

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library and the Department of History are pleased to announce the 2024-2025 Research Travel Grant to support scholars conducting research in any of the Library’s collections.

The University Library is one of the largest research libraries in the U.S., holding more than 14 million volumes and 24 million other items and materials in all formats, languages, and subjects. Special collections include the papers of literary figures such as Marcel Proust, H.G. Wells, Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, extensive collections of Slavic and East European materials and of materials documenting the history of science, technology, international agricultural programs, and librarianship, the premier collection on international amateur sports and the Olympics, and a unique collection of sub-Saharan African research materials. Travel grant recipients will also have access to the Library’s digital collections (including journal subscriptions and licensed databases) during their stay.

For more information about the Library’s collections, see: https://www.library.illinois.edu/collections/special-collections

Travel grant awards typically range from $1,000 to $2,500 per recipient. Funds may be applied toward round-trip travel, and accommodations and expenses in Urbana-Champaign, IL.

Continue reading “Call for Applications: 2024-2025 Research Travel Grant”

Life Stories of Remarkable Women

March is Women’s History Month. It’s also National Reading Month! If our last post put you in the mood to read more biographies of women, the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library’s shelves are bursting with possibilities. Discover the fascinating lives of a 1st-century C.E. Jewish ruler, a neo-Platonist mathematician, an 18th-century Italian physicist, a 19th-century samurai grandmother, a dozen under-appreciated British philosophers, a Mexican independence fighter, a Sufi spy in Nazi-occupied Paris, an agnostic French Jew who became a Christian mystic, a Zimbabwean painter, a Black Canadian science fiction writer, and many, many more.

Here are a few recent biographies that jumped out at me: Continue reading “Life Stories of Remarkable Women”

Call for Applications: 2023-2024 Research Travel Grant

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library and the Department of History are pleased to announce a Research Travel Grant to support scholars conducting research in any of the Library’s collections.

The University Library is one of the largest research libraries in the U.S., holding more than 14 million volumes and 24 million other items and materials in all formats, languages, and subjects. Special collections include the papers of literary figures such as Marcel Proust, H.G. Wells, Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, extensive collections of Slavic and East European materials and of materials documenting the history of science, technology, international agricultural programs, and librarianship, the premier collection on international amateur sports and the Olympics, and a unique collection of sub-Saharan African research materials. Travel grant recipients will also have access to the Library’s digital collections (including journal subscriptions and licensed databases) during their stay.

For more information about the Library’s collections, see: https://www.library.illinois.edu/collections/special-collections

Travel grants awards typically range from $1,000 to $2,500 per recipient. Funds may be applied toward round-trip travel, and accommodations and expenses in Urbana-Champaign, IL.

Continue reading “Call for Applications: 2023-2024 Research Travel Grant”

Call for Applications: 2022-2023 Research Travel Grant

Update: It’s not too late to apply for a Research Travel Grant to visit our Library in Spring 2023! Applications received by December 5, 2022, will be considered for spring funding.

Call for applications: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library 2022-2023 Research Travel Grant

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library and the Department of History are pleased to announce a Research Travel Grant to support scholars conducting research in any of the Library’s collections. Continue reading “Call for Applications: 2022-2023 Research Travel Grant”

New Library Catalog debuts June 24, 2020

In late June, the University Library will introduce its new catalog, Primo. The Primo Catalog is the search interface of a state-of-the-art library management system called Ex Libris Alma. The Alma/Primo system was designed to provide better access to, and management of, 21st-century library collections. It has been adopted by a number of research libraries including Harvard and Northwestern.

Continue reading “New Library Catalog debuts June 24, 2020”

Access to 115 digitized primary source collections from ProQuest

For the next three years, the Library will provide full access to all of ProQuest’s primary source collections and titles, including some really major collections such as Early European Books Online, newspapers to which we haven’t previously had access (eg, the Jerusalem Post), more installments of British Periodicals, several Civil War-related collections, and ALL of Proquest’s primary source materials digitized from microfilm in their “History Vault,” including labor history collections, Confidential State Department files, INS records, Margaret Sanger’s papers, and much, much more. Please see the complete list at https://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/history/proquest-trials/  –there are collections of interest to most fields of history, as well as the arts and humanities more broadly, the social sciences, and some scientific disciplines. In addition to manuscript and printed materials of all sorts, there are streaming videos and recorded sound collections.

Continue reading “Access to 115 digitized primary source collections from ProQuest”