Europeana

The European library recently went live with its digital library, Europeana. Unfortunately, they weren't prepared for the traffic, and had to take it down almost immediately.
According to an article in the New York Times today, "The most interest came from Germany, at 17 percent, followed by France, at 10 percent, Spain at 9 percent, Italy at 6 percent, the Netherlands at 5 percent and Belgium and the United States at 4 percent."

Still, they promise to be up with a more robust server next month. In the meanwhile, learn more about it on the development site (entirely in English!) : http://dev.europeana.eu/

and in this article from the NYT: "France dominates Europea's Digital Library"

French history bibliography

I've recently finished the next installment of the "Recent books and dissertations in French history" that I compile for the journal French Historical Studies. It is huge - I even added a separate section for all of the works published on the 40th anniversary of the events of mai '68.

I can't post the entire bibliography here, since it is destined for the journal, but if you'd like a sneak peek at a specific section, please send me an email

The categories are:

General and miscellaneous (local histories, theory, works on historians, thematic works and other titles that don't fit into temporal limits)

Ancient and Medieval

1500-1770

French Revolution and Napoleon

1815-1870

Third Republic

1940 to the present

May 1968

Colonialism and DOM-TOM

Recently acquired

Here's a selected list of new books that have recently arrived in the library. As usual, divided by country/language, this time Italian before French...

Italy

Alessandrelli, Susanna. Ironie vs humour : essai de définition typologique. Perugia : Morlacchi, 2006.

Alimento, Antonella. Finanze e amministrazione : un'inchiesta francese sui catasti nell'Italia del Settecento, 1763-1764. Firenze : L. S. Olschki, [2008].

Buccio, di Ranallo, d. 1363. Cronica. Firenze : SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo per la Fondazione Ezio Franceschini, 2008.

Castaldini, Alberto. La segregazione apparente : gli Ebrei a Verona nell'età del ghetto, secoli XVI-XVIII. Firenze : L.S. Olschki, 2008.

Convegno internazionale "Africa orientale italiana, settant'anni dopo" (2006 : Cagliari, Italy) L'Africa orientale italiana nel dibattito storico contemporaneo. Roma : Carocci, 2007.

Differences, deceits and desires : murder and mayhem in Italian crime fiction. Newark : University of Delaware Press, 2008.

Finlay, Robert. Venice besieged: politics and diplomacy in the Italian wars, 1494-1534. Aldershot, Hampshire, Great Britain ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate/Variorum, c2008.

I poeti della scuola siciliana. Milano : A. Mondadori, 2008-

Il concetto di libertà nel Rinascimento : atti del XVIII convegno internazionale, Chianciano-Pienza 17-20 luglio 2006. Firenze : F. Cesati, c2008.

La Rovere, Luca. L'eredità del fascismo : gli intellettualli, i giovani e la transizione al postfascismo, 1943-1948. Torino : Bollati Boringhieri, 2008.

Miglio, Luisa. Governare l'alfabeto : donne, scrittura e libri nel Medioevo. Roma : Viella, 2008.

Opere e linguaggio segreto di Dante e dei fedeli d'amore, straordinari rischiaratori dell'universo. Latina : Il levante, 2007.

Rebora, Clemente, 1885-1957. Frammenti lirici. Novara : Interlinea, c2008.

Taviani, Carlo. Superba discordia : guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo Cinquecento. Roma : Viella, 2008.

France

Addyman, Ishbel. Cyrano : adventures in space and time with the legendary French hero. London ; New York : Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Badinter, Robert. Abolition: One Man's Battle against the Death Penalty. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2008.

Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002. The bachelors' ball : the crisis of peasant society in Béarn. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, c2008.

Breton, André, 1896-1966. Martinique : snake charmer. Austin : University of Texas Press, 2008.

Federman, Raymond. The Sam book. Ullapool, Ross-shire [Scotland] : Two Ravens Press, c2008.

Frankland : the Franks and the world of the early Middle Ages : essays in honour of Dame Jinty Nelson. Manchester [England] : Manchester University Press, 2008.

French women poets of nine centuries : the distaff & the pen. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Fuchs, Rachel Ginnis. Contested paternity : constructing families in modern France. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Gildea, Robert. Children of the Revolution : the French, 1799-1914. London ; New York : Allen Lane, 2008.

History and politics in French-language comics and graphic novels. Mark McKinney, ed. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c2008.

Panerai, Philippe. Paris métropole: Formes et échelles du grand-Paris. Paris: Villette, 2008.

Sebbar, Leïla, and Mildred P. Mortimer. The Seine Was Red: Paris, October 1961. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

Sonenscher, Michael. Sans-culottes : an eighteenth-century emblem in the French Revolution. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2008.

Stewart, Mary Lynn. Dressing modern Frenchwomen : marketing haute couture, 1919-1939. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Young, Paul J. Seducing the eighteenth-century French reader : reading, writing, and the question of pleasure. Aldershot, Hampshire, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2008.

BnF to add records to WorldCat

The BnF and OCLC have recently announced that they will be loading about 13.2 million catalog records from the BnF into OCLC's WorldCat database. This will make it much easier to discover whether the BnF owns a title that you are looking for, and will be especially useful for identifying rare and unique items in its collections.

This news represents the sustained effort that OCLC is making to internationalize its database. Catalog records for non-English-language materials now make up more than 50% of WorldCat's records.

For more information, please see the press release.

Antiquarian Acquisitions - October 2008

Italian

Catalogo di libri per una prima coltura nelle scienze sociali ed economiche. {S.l.} : {S.n.}, 1899. (to be sold at the Giornale degli economisti, Rome)

Danieli, Gaetano, 1747-1829. Sull'umana certezza : riflessioni filosofiche. Vicenze : Stamperia Turra, 1785.

Il sentimento della riconoscenza : opera di un pensatore filantropo. Firenze : Nella stamperia già Albizziniana, 1788.

Pandette dei notai antich [microform]. Genoa : Foto Ducale [producer], 1951.
108 microfilm reels
Manuscript collection of Genoese notarial records dating from before 1300 A.D. contained in the Archivio di State in Genoa.

Ridolfi, Luca Antonio. Aretefila, dialogo, nel quale da una parte sono quelle ragioni allegate, lequali affermano, lo amore di corporal bellezza potere ancora per la via dell'udire pervenire al quore: et dall'altra, quelle che vogliono lui havere solamente per gl'occhij l'entrata sua: colla sentenza sopra cotal quistione. Lione, G. Rovillio, 1562.

Trioli, Gioacchino, 1735-1799. L'educazione delle fanciulle, opera istruttiva d'un filosofo italiano ... In Venezia, Presso Giambatista Novelli. Con permesso de'superiori. MDCCLXVI.

French

Descubes, Bernard. Mon carnet d'éclaireur, août-novembre, 1914. Paris : Perrin, 1916, c1915.

Emery, Rose. Une année à Paris. Impressions d'une jeune fille. Paris, Chez l'Auteur, 1886. 139 pp.

Lemercier, A. Les marins célèbres de la France. Tours : Alfred Mame et Fils, 1882 (nouvelle edition), 191 p.

Lescale, Adam Scaliger, called chevalier de, 17th cent. Alphabet de l'eccellence et perfection des femmes. Contre l'infame alphabet de leur imperfection & malice, A Paris, Chez Nicolas de la Vigne, en la cour du Palais, proche les degrez de la saincte chappelle. M.DC.XXXI.

Margueritte, Victor. La patrie humaine. Faites l’Europe, sinon vous ferez la guerre. Paris. Ernest Flammarion, Éditeur, 1931, 287 p.

Pierre, Jules. L’Action Française en 1923 : sa méthode - Par tous les moyens ! ; son patriotisme ; sa morale et sa religion. Par Abbé Jules Pierre. Paris-Rennes. Bureaux de l’Ouest-Éclair, 1923, 296 p.

Savigny, Mme. Anne Victorine, 1865-1917 (pseud. Madame Thèbes). L'énigme de la main. Paris, F. Juven [1900].