Bancroft Library/UC Berkeley Digitizes 32 Texts From Collection of Popular French Literature, Added to Bibliothèque Bleue Online
From A UC Berkeley Library “Romance Collections News” Post:
Thirty-two texts of popular French literature from the Bancroft Library’s collection of Bibliothèque Bleue de Troyes have recently been digitized and added to ARTFL’s Bibliothèque Bleue Online. Hosted by the University of Chicago, the openly accessible database of now 284 separate livrets (booklets) comprises a single searchable corpus for a representative portion of the vast publishing enterprise which was started by printer-bookseller Nicolas Oudot in the early 17th century in Troyes and quickly spread across Western Europe and flourished through the middle of the 19th century. While the length of the texts are usually quite brief and the content varies considerably, they were always aimed at popular consumption. ARTFL’s database, powered by PhiloLogic, includes both the searchable text as well as the digital facsimiles of the often badly worn and cheaply produced chapbooks, which were typically covered in bleue (blue) sugar paper wrappers.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.