Digital resources: “Nineteenth Century Collections Online” digital project in the United States

Gale, part of Cengage Learning and a leading publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, schools and businesses, has announced the source libraries, collections and plans for the first four modules of “Nineteenth Century Collections Online”, its global digitization and publishing program that brings together rare nineteenth-century primary source content. Currently still in development, the modules will be available this spring.

“Nineteenth Century Collections Online” is an ongoing publishing program with content and partner libraries being added continuously. The British Library, The National Archives (United States), The National Archives at Kew, United Kingdom, the Bodleian Library – University of Oxford, and Castle Corvey in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany have all provided primary source content to be digitized and included in the archive.

"One of the important elements of “Nineteenth Century Collections Online” is that most of the content has never before been digitized, and a great deal of the content has never been captured for microfilm or been otherwise made available outside the source institution," said Jim Draper, vice president and publisher, Gale.

The first modules of “Nineteenth Century Collections Online”, to be released this spring, include:

- “British Politics and Society” - will present a range of primary sources covering such topics as British domestic and foreign policy, the working class, trade unions, public protest, radical movements, political reform and many others.

- “Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange” will cover such topics as British and U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy; Asian political, economic, and social affairs; the Philippine Insurrection, the Opium Wars and more.

- “British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture” - will include a range of materials, including playbills, scripts, operas and scores – many of them never before filmed or made available electronically – covering such topics as Victorian popular culture, street literature, music and bloods and penny dreadfuls.

- “Corvey Collection of European Literature: 1790-1840” - is a unique collection of monographs covering a wide range of Romantic literature published in English, French and German. Sourced from Corvey Abbey in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, it is one of the most important collections of works from the period in existence.