News from the Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame

T he recent acquisition of a major microfilm collection titled “Early English Newspapers” has added 1,412 newspapers and broadsides to the Hesburgh Libraries’ holdings. This extraordinary purchase was made possible by the discernment and generosity of a group of University benefactors known as “The President’s Circle.” Many faculty and students are unaware of the wealth of primary sources available in the Microtext Reading Room in the Lower Level of Hesburgh Library. Various types of microformat reproduce thousands of primary source materials including books, periodicals and manuscripts from different regions of the world and from centuries past and present. A few examples are “History of Western Philosophy,” “American Periodicals of the 18 Century,” “Gothic Fiction: Rare Printed Works from the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction at the Alderman Library, University of Virginia,” “Women and Victorian Values: Advice Books, Manuals, and Journals for Women,” and “Manuscripts of the Irish Literary Renaissance.” Besides novels, diaries and advice books, there are chapbooks, “penny dreadfuls” and other unusual formats. “The Eighteenth Century” collection alone contains hundreds of thousands of books printed in the British Isles from 1701 to 1800. “Early English Newspapers” brilliantly complements the enormous “Eighteenth Century” collection of books. Microfilming began with the collections of early newspapers gathered by Dr. Charles Burney (acquired by the British Museum--now Library--in 1818) and that of Burney’s collecting rival, John Nicholls (acquired by Oxford University’s Bodleian Library in 1865). Coverage was extended to the 19th century with hundreds of titles selected from various catalogs. The publisher, Primary Source Microfilm, notes: “The importance of these newspapers as a significant record of the social, intellectual, and political history of modern Europe and as a unique record of the development and diversity of the newspaper press, has become increasingly evident to scholars of the 20 th century.” Taken together, these two huge microfilm collections make Notre Dame a major player in the study of 18th-century England, Ireland, Scotland and Britain’s former colonies. In addition “Early English Newspapers” sheds light on daily and weekly events as well as the customs, opinions and values of 19th-century Britain. continued on page 2 From the Director by Jennifer A. Younger, Edward H. Arnold Director of University Libraries