Library Research Guides: E-Resources for Arts & Humanities: Germanic Studies, French & Italian

Resources for Germanic Studies

Digital libraries containing German-language texts:

Europeana Collections
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Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.
Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.

HathiTrust
Contains nearly 800,000 texts in German, Middle German, High German, Low German, and Swiss German, with full view access to approximately 350,000 books. NOTE: HathiTrust is offering temporary full-view access to affiliates of partner institutions for a large number of copyrighted works that would be otherwise inaccessible due to library shutdowns caused by COVID-19. Filter for "full-view texts" in order to see books that are public domain and those that have been temporarily made available.

Free public domain texts in German, Danish, and Dutch from Project Gutenberg.

Dictionaries and Grammars:

Datenbank-Paket Duden
Collection of German language reference works (biographies, county information, law, literature, film, music, dictionaries and encyclopedias, press, and important dates) from the publishing house Duden.
Online collection of German language reference works of the publishing house Duden. The default search screen is set to "alle Duden-Datenbanken" (all Duden databases) which includes the following Duden dictionaries and lexicons: Deutsches Universalwörterbuch (Universal German dictionary); Das grosse Fremdwörterbuch (Large dictionary of internationalisms); Das Synonymwörterbuch (Dictionary of synonyms); Das grosse Wörterbuch der Zitate und Redewendungen (Large dictionary of quotations and idioms); Wörterbuch der Abkürzungen (Dictionary of abbreviations); Familiennamen, Herkunft und Bedeutung (Family names, ethymology and meaning); Das Wörterbuch medizinischer Fachausdrücke (Dictionary of medical terminology); Wörterbuch der New Economy (Dictionary of the new economy); Das Lexikon der Wirtschaft (Dictionary of economy); Die deutsche Rechtschreibung (German orthography); Das Herkunftswörterbuch (Etymological dictionary); Richtiges und gutes Deutsch (Correct and proper German); Grosses Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Large dictionary of the German language); Lexikon der Vornamen (Lexicon of first names); Geographische Namen in Deutschland (Geographical names in Germany); Wörterbuch der Szenesprachen (Contemporary Slang dictionary); and Recht (Law).

DWDS (Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften)
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Provides a historical lexicon of the German language and a massive digital library of German language texts. A project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Union of German Academies of Sciences.

Other databases available to all Indiana University students, faculty, and staff:

Digitale Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker
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Coverage ranges from early German texts to works of major 19th-century authors, including areas such as literature, history, philosophy, theology, politics, and art history.
The Digitale Bibliothek Deutscher Klassiker offers an electronic version of the texts published since 1981 by the Deutscher Klassiker Verlag [German Classical Publishing Company], an affiliate of the Suhrkamp publishing company. As the title suggests, it makes available major works by German-language authors, spanning eleven centuries and ranging from such early texts as Lancelot und Ginover and works by Wolfram von Eschenbach to writings by major 18th- and 19th-century authors such as Herder, Büchner, Schleiermacher, and Fichte. As well, there are collections of historical, philosophical, theological, political, and art history texts. All works have been newly edited and are accompanied by extensive commentaries. Searching can be done for titles, keywords, or authors. Searches can be limited to the works of a particular author or to a specific genre of texts. Keyword searches can be performed on words in combination or for words in proximity. Truncation and wildcard searching allows retrieval of documents containing variations on a search term.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
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Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a large collection of medieval historical sources for the study of German-speaking Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) during the Middle Ages.
The database contains texts from all five divisions of MGH: Scriptores, Leges, Diplomata, Epistolae, and Antiquitates.
BDSL Online
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Lists bibliographic information for nearly 400,000 monographs and articles in journals, newspapers, anthologies, and Festschriften dealing with German language and literature.
BDSL Online is the electronic version of the Bibliographie der deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, known as Eppelsheimer-Köttelwesch after its first two editors at the University Library in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It indexes materials that deal with the study of German literature and language, including monographs as well as articles in journals, newspapers, anthologies, and Festschriften. The materials it covers are published world-wide, although the preponderance of them are German. The indexed titles are all held by the Frankfurt University Library and can usually be obtained from there by means of Interlibrary Loan, if needed.
Campus Verlag Ebooks: Sozialwissenschaften 2001-2012
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Collection of scholarly German ebooks in the social sciences. Subjects covered include cultural studies, philosophy, political science, and sociology.
Campus Verlag Ebooks: Geschichte 2002-2012
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Collection of German (and a few English) humanities and history e-book titles.
Some examples of titles included are:

Historische Migrationsforschung - Sylvia Hahn
Eine sowjetische Nation: Nationale Sozialismusinterpretationen in Armenien seit 1945 - Maike Lehmann
One Law for All? Western models and local practices in (post-) imperial contexts - Stefan B. Kirmse (Ed.)
Krisen verstehen:Historische und kulturwissenschaftliche Annäherungen - Thomas Mergel (Ed.)
Compact Memory
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German-Jewish periodicals published between 1806 and 1938
Der Literarische Expressionismus Online
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Provides access to early 20th Century journals, yearbooks, collections and anthologies related to German Expressionism.
DigiZeitschriften e.V.
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Index (with full text) to core German scholarly journals in a wide variety of disciplines.
DigiZeitschriften (the German digital journal archive) provides access (with full text) to about 135 core German research journals in a variety of subject areas, including: Arts, Economics, Education, Egyptology and coptology, English language and literature, Geology, Germanic language and literature, History, Law, Librarianship, Mathematics, Music, Philology, Philosophy, Religion, Romance language and literature, Sciences, and Sociology.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) Bibliotheksportal
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Digitized articles from the German newspapers Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and Frankfurter Rundschau.
Includes access to the following modules:

F.A.Z.-BiblioNet: this module includes articles from Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from 1993-Present.

F.A.Z.49-92: this module contains digitized articles from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from 1949 to 1992 and Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from 1990 to 1992.

Frankfurter Rundschau: this module contains digitized articles from Frankfurter Rundschau since 1995.
IBZ Online
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Multidisciplinary index to articles predominately in the German language with some citations in English, French and other languages.
The IBZ covers international periodical literature in all fields, including philosophy, theology, psychology, communication, law, pedagogics, politics, sociology, economics, literature, language, art, music, theater, film, archaeology, ethnography, natural sciences, biology, anthropology, agriculture, ecology, medicine, mathematics, statistics, earth sciences and technology. Database is updated monthly, and contains articles from some 11,300 journals from 1983 to the present.

Entries in the IBZ are predominantly German-language, but include citations in English, French and other languages.

Print source: The IBZ in print covers the years 1885-1993. See IUCAT for the IUB Library holdings.

Resources for French Studies

Dictionaries and Grammars:

Grand Robert de la Langue Française
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The definitive French language dictionary.
Online version of the authoritative French dictionary produced by De Marque.
Grand Corpus des Dictionnaires [du 9e au 20e siècle]
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French-language dictionaries and encyclopedias of arts and sciences from the 9th to the 20th centuries.
This database includes the most important dictionaries of the French language, representing over 900,000 entries and their definitions. Contents: Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du 9e au 15e siècle / Frédéric Godefroy -- La curne de Sainte-Palaye, dictionnaire historique de l'ancien langage français depuis son origine jusqu'au siècle de Louis XIV -- Dictionnaire de la langue française du 16e siècle / Edmond Huguet -- Dictionnaire Francoislatin, 1549 / Estienne (Robert) -- Thrésor de la langue françoyse, tant ancienne que moderne, 1606 / Nicot (Jean) -- Dictionarie of the French and English tongues, 1611 / Cotgrave (Randle) -- Origines de la langue françoise, 1650 / Ménage (Gilles) -- Dictionnaire françois, 1680 / Richelet (Pierre) -- Dictionaire de l'Académie françoise, 1687 [Avant-Première I] -- Dictionaire de l'Académie françoise, 1687 [Avant-Première 2] -- Dictionaire de l'Académie françoise, 1687 [Avant-Première 3] -- Essai d'un Dictionaire universel, 1687 / Furetière (Antoine) -- Dictionaire universal / Furetière (Antoine) -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise dedié au Roy, 1694 [1st ed.] -- Dictionnaire des arts et des sciences, 1694 / Corneille (Thomas) -- Dictionnaire de étymologique, ou origines de la langue françoise, 1694 / Ménage (Gilles) -- Nouveau dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1718 [2nd ed.] -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1740 [3rd ed.] -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1762 [4th ed.] -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1798 [5th ed.] -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1835 [6th ed.] --Complément du Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 1842 / Barre (Louis) -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1879 [7th ed.] -- Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1932-1935 [8th ed.]

Digital libraries offering primary sources in French:

Europeana Collections
At Europeana we work with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research.

Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitised items – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for.
Gallica
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Over 460,000 books and 36,000 manuscripts from the Bibliotheque Nationale du France partnering libraries in France as well as French materials in the Library of Congress and the National Library of Brazil.

Free eBooks in French:

eBooks Libres & Graduits
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A database of classic French texts and authors in French translation, organized by author.
La Bibliothèque électronique du Québec
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A database of public domain texts by québécoise and other francophone authors.

IU Libraries also subscribes to these databases already:

ARTFL Project
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The ARTFL Project is a collection of digitized resources on the French language.
ARTFL's main corpus, ARTFL-FRANTEXT, consists of nearly 3,000 texts, ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing. The eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries are about equally represented, with a smaller selection of seventeenth century texts as well as some medieval and Renaissance texts.
Cairn.info
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An online collection of over 600 French language journals in the social sciences and humanities.
Provides comprehensive collection of publications in the French language available online in full text in the disciplines of economics, law, history and geography, literature and linguistics, psychology, education, political science, sociology, and sport.
Launched by the publishing houses Belin, De Boeck, La Découverte, and Erès, with support from Gesval, Université de Liège, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Centre national du livre, France.
General Info: Availability of full-text varies from journal to journal. Some articles are open access; others are available for purchase.

Resources for Italian Studies:

Il Grande dizionario della lingua italiana
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Published from 1961 to 2002, the GDLI is the most comprehensive dictionary of the Italian language. Like the Oxford English Dictionary, it traces the historical usage of 183,594 words and is an important tool for studying the evolution of Italian over the centuries.
Trecanni
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A well-known Italian vocabulary and encyclopedia published by La fondazione dell'Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana.
WordReference
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Includes an Italian-English dictionary and conjugation tables.
Forvo.com
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Open source guide to pronunciation with audio pronunciations uploaded and rated by users from diverse regional backgrounds.

Europeana Collections
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Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.
Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.

HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, HathiTrust has activated its Emergency Temporary Access Service for participating libraries. IU students can now access digital copies of approximately 1.7 million books they would normally have access to in the IU Libraries physical collections.

To access these books in HathiTrust:

1. Log in to HathiTrust using your Indiana University credentials.

2. Select CATALOG search and Full view only.

3. Enter your search terms. Happy browsing!

Project MUSE - Free Access to Content During COVID-19

Over 70 scholarly publishers are offering free electronic access to their journals and books through Project MUSE over the next two months. A full list of participating publishers is here.

E-Resources for Arts & Humanities

Resources for Germanic Studies

Digital libraries containing German-language texts:

Dictionaries and Grammars:

Other databases available to all Indiana University students, faculty, and staff:

Resources for French Studies

Dictionaries and Grammars:

Digital libraries offering primary sources in French:

Free eBooks in French:

IU Libraries also subscribes to these databases already:

Resources for Italian Studies:

HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service

To access these books in HathiTrust:

1. Log in to HathiTrust using your Indiana University credentials.

2. Select CATALOG search and Full view only.

3. Enter your search terms. Happy browsing!

Project MUSE - Free Access to Content During COVID-19

Over 70 scholarly publishers are offering free electronic access to their journals and books through Project MUSE over the next two months. A full list of participating publishers is here.

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