Every bird deserves a nest, and so here it is.  A  year ago, Paratext launched bird: Base Inventory of Research Databases.   The response has been fantastic, and many libraries are now using it to make better decisions about their research database collection.   But a few questions lingered. How does our library compare with others?  Well, Paratext now has an answer for that--nest. nest is a new suite of library comparison analytics, built upon(read more)

"Some birds are poets, and sing all summer."  -- Henry David Thoreau, journals, July 1852. bird helps selectors, public services librarians, collection analysts and advanced researchers stay current on all research databases. When you use bird, you know what is out there--and save time spent wandering the web. Here is the latest on recent bird additions:   *  376 new database profiles added since February As editorial work expands,(read more)

  “It is spring again.  The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”     — Rainer Maria Rilke.   Spring is when birds take center stage. With this in mind, here's the latest on bird: Base Inventory of Research Databases from Paratext.    EBOOK collections now also in bird The inclusion of eBook collections within bird has been a much-debated issue for our editorial group since the project began in 2021.(read more)

The Sanborn maps. Ask any historian of early American history “what’s a Sanborn map?” and you’re likely to receive an earful. The maps, which cover American cities decade-by-decade, chart the rapid change and growth of this country’s urban areas in a way matched by few other primary sources.  The digitized versions of Sanborn maps have been used by historians for years. However, there exists a vital tool which has not been accessible in an integrated(read more)

Paratext launched bird; Base Inventory of Research Databases last Tuesday at the Charleston Conference, and we were rather encouraged by the enthusiastic response from the attendees who saw it live.    Well, things got even better after the exhibits closed. During the Charleston Premiers segment later on, the roughly 200 attendees at the session were polled and voted bird, the Best Overall New Product and Best Designed New Product! This is enormously gratifying.(read more)

As we head into the last quarter of 2023, we’ve been getting inquiries from researchers about what is “exclusive” to Paratext’s Eight Centuries. As a response, we’re reaching back into our blog archive to republish some posts on sources and methodologies that remain just as relevant today as when they were first posted. This article, originally published in June 2018, was part of the  “Exploring” blog series looking at various exclusive sources(read more)

As we head into the last quarter of 2023, we’ve been getting inquiries from researchers about what is “exclusive” to Paratext’s Eight Centuries. As a response, we’re reaching back into our blog archive to republish some posts on sources and methodologies that remain just as relevant today as when they were first posted. This article, originally published in September 2018, addresses one of the key central genre of source exclusive to Eight Centuries: the(read more)

As we head into the last quarter of 2023, we’ve been getting inquiries from researchers about what is “exclusive” to Paratext’s Eight Centuries. As a response, we’re reaching back into our blog archive to republish some posts on sources and methodologies that remain just as relevant today as when they were first posted. This article, originally published in August 2018, looks at a sometimes-overlooked genre of historical source: political cartoons. Though(read more)

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to United States Masterfile: the NASA Index to Photograph Files, 1958-1991. This resource joins the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Repository and the NASA Planetary Data System Digital Products archive in United States Masterfile, giving researchers access to a wider variety of NASA-derived resources than ever before. Providing searchable descriptions of nearly 65 thousand images produced by NASA from the late 1950s to the(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce a new source available to your patrons. Now ready to search in Eight Centuries: the Tate Collection. Founded in 1897 and originally named the National Gallery of British Art, the Tate has since grown into a four gallery institution spread across the UK, from London to Liverpool and Cornwall. The Tate Collection in Eight Centuries contains records for the nearly 70,000 objects that comprise the holdings of the museum. Links to the Tate catalog in each record(read more)

Another recent addition to Eight Centuries is now ready to search by your patrons: the Art Institute of Chicago Catalog. Founded in 1879, the Art Institute of Chicago is one of the premier art institutions in the United States. The catalog searchable in Eight Centuries contains over 120,000 records describing artworks from as far back as the ancient world and as recent as the contemporary period. Links to catalog entries on the Art Institute website are provided, which include full images(read more)

Another recent addition to Eight Centuries is now ready to search by your patrons: records of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access Collection. Founded in 1870 in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest art museums in the world with a collection stretching over 5,000 years of world art history. The Met OA collection searchable in Eight Centuries comprises over 200 thousand records, containing links to catalog entries, as well as image links where(read more)

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to Eight Centuries: records of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Collection in New York City. Founded in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art is one of the world’s premier collections of art from the modern period and beyond. The MoMA collection in Eight Centuries contains records to artworks dating from the eighteenth century to the present day. The MoMA collection searchable in Eight Centuries comprises nearly 140 thousand records,(read more)

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to Eight Centuries: records of the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection. Founded in 1913, the Cleveland Museum of Art remains one of the premier public art institutions in the United States. The CMA’s collection stretches from the ancient British Isles and Egypt to contemporary artists working in the twenty-first century. The CMA collection searchable in Eight Centuries comprises nearly 64 thousand records, containing links to(read more)

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to United States Masterfile: the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Repository. A resource containing over 500 thousand records and counting, NASA’s Scientific and Technical Information Repository contains documents from as far back as the days of NACA to as recently as 2022. The NASA STI repository contains open source reports, technical documents, metadata, videos, sound recordings, and images relating to the past and(read more)

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to Eight Centuries: the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). A database founded in 2006 and maintained by a consortium of United States and European libraries and academies, the BHL operates as an Open Source resource for the biological research community. The BHL data contained in Eight Centuries comprises over 166 thousand records to biology texts ranging from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Within the Biodiversity(read more)

Over the last few months, we at Paratext have been busily adding new data to our products to make them even more useful to your researchers and students. That’s why, we are happy to announce another recent addition to United States Masterfile: Founders Online. A joint project between the National Archives National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) and the University of Virginia Press, Founders Online is a database of the writings and correspondence of John Adams,(read more)

Data from the Mapping Early American Elections project is now available to search in Eight Centuries. A project completed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and made available for public use, Mapping Early American Elections (MEAE) is a database of United States election results from 1787 to 1825. The nearly 13 thousand MEAE records in Eight Centuries link to fully mapped election results available on the project’s website. Within(read more)

The entire online publication run of the Federal Register, the official periodical of the United States federal government, is now available to search by U.S. Documents Masterfile users. A publication of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Federal Register has been published online since 1994. U.S. Documents Masterfile contains the full set of online issues of the Register, a corpus of nearly 900,000 records—all with full text online. Within this resource,(read more)

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to U.S. Documents Masterfile: the Bibliographic Metadata of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series. A publication of the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series is the official record of U.S. foreign policy going back to 1861. Originally contained in 500 physical volumes, the digital version available through U.S. Documents Masterfile links to full text online(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce two new sources now available to search in Eight Centuries: the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Catalog and the Samuel Pepys Diary. The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Catalog is a compilation of records describing printed and photographic material housed in the Library of Congress collections. This invaluable catalog contains over 1.4 million records describing material in the collection, including links to full text in many cases. The(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce two new sources now available to search in U.S. Documents Masterfile: the Compilation of Presidential Documents collection and the U.S. Geological Survey Publications Warehouse index. The Compilation of Presidential Documents is an ongoing collection of documents going back to 1993 pertaining to the day-to-day activities of the office of the President of the United States. Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records(read more)

What do two ‘80s punk rockers, a half-fish/half-woman, and a Cyprian big shot have in common? Besides sounding like the beginning of a bad joke, these are all subjects found in source material cataloged in Europeana—a massive repository of cultural heritage bringing together records from thousands of institutions across Europe which is now searchable in Eight Centuries. One of the most remarkable qualities of Europeana in Eight Centuries is its vastness: nearly 53 million records(read more)

2022 was a significant year for Eight Centuries from Paratext.   We completed our two year transition from “19th Century Masterfile” to Eight Centuries, added nearly 70 million additional records, and implemented vastly improved navigation features to all our products.   Now that the Eight Centuries name is in place we suggest:     Updating your library’s database A-Z list: replace “19th Century Masterfile” with(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that hundreds of population statistics datasets indexed in the U.S. Census Discovery API Index is now available to search in U.S. Documents Masterfile.   These datasets, which span from the mid-1980s to 2021, provide detailed population statistics in a variety of key areas. Among these highly valuable statistics tables, find information on changing demographics, birth/death rates by geographical area, median incomes, languages spoken, ethnicities,(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that the index of publications available through the USDA’s Economics, Statistics and Market Information System is now available to search in U.S. Documents Masterfile. Maintained by Cornell University, the Economics, Statistics and Market Information System (or ESMIS) online index is a clearinghouse for publications produced by agencies within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Five agencies within the USDA produce the nearly 2,300 publications listed(read more)

In 2021 we added an entirely new feature for subscribers of multiple products: Cross Search. This feature allows easy instant searching of a search term across Eight Centuries, U.S. Documents Masterfile, and Reference Universe. To celebrate this exciting new feature, we’re looking back at different sources now easily accessible across products via Cross Search. Today: the Atlantic Monthly historical index available to search in 8C. With apologies to the late columnist Syd Harris(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce the addition of nearly 53 million records from Europeana into Eight Centuries, opening up unprecedented access to the cultural heritage contained in Europe’s myriad cultural institutions.   An initiative of the European Union that has been growing since its inception in 2005, Europeana brings together the collections of thousands of European archives and museums into one vast dataset for use by researchers and the general public.   By(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that datasets from the NASA Planetary Data System are now available to search in U.S. Documents Masterfile. These datasets, found within NASA PDS Digital Products in the USDM source dropdown, give access to primary scientific data pertaining to a wide variety of different fields and disciplines. This material includes data gleaned from NASA planetary missions, laboratory experiments, and Earth-based missions. Find everything from atmospheric data describing(read more)

“Get a thorough insight into the index, by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail.”  – Jonathan Swift This final installment of our trilogy on Focused Browsing (see our previous posts) advances the position that browsing scholarly indexes to specialized encyclopedias reveals new research pathways. Indexes can lead you down paths you never knew existed. A director of a large research library told me “when librarians get a(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that nearly 160,000 records from the National Park Service DataCenter are now being loaded into United States Documents Masterfile. The NPS DataCenter is a clearinghouse for documents related to the functioning of the NPS and its predecessors that has been digitized and made available online. This continually-updated resource contains records of source material from as early as 1774. The DataCenter includes a wide variety of different types of publications(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce the new Sources Snapshot redesign in United States Documents Masterfile. Our new tiled system makes this resource more useful in a number of ways.   First, the new design makes better use of wide screen space, giving you a clearer, easier-to-parse graphical view of all search results at a single glance. This allows users to easily drill down into a particular contemporary or historical source quickly. Second, View All Records immediately resorts(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that two new sources of Smithsonian Institution metadata and full text links are now accessible via Eight Centuries. Not only is this important for the sheer usefulness of additional source data, these new sources represent a milestone in the history of Eight Centuries itself. When this project began in 1999 (as “Poole’s Plus,” and later, “19th Century Masterfile”) there were all of two datasets—the first: an enhanced(read more)

This post is the second in a three-part series that began with Meandering the Stacks in March 2021 and concluded with Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things in June 2021. - Ed.   “The comparative perspectives provided by multiple specialized encyclopedias provide an assurance of quality that does not attach to Wikipedia articles. Again, this is not to criticize the latter for what they do; it is rather to point out that other important research options for(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce the new Sources Snapshot redesign in Eight Centuries. Our new tiled system is an improvement for a number of reasons. For one, this new layout makes better use of wide screen space, giving you a clearer, easier-to-parse view of all search results at a single glance. The source tiles will still be rendered from most to least number of record hits, requiring no change in your existing Eight Centuries workflow. Furthermore, the new layout will adapt to any(read more)

This post is the first in a three-part series that continued with Researching at Altitude in April 2021 and concluded with Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things in June 2021. - Ed.   “Classified bookstacks allow researchers to find through recognition what they don’t know what to ask for…focused browsing provides deep access via recognition in a way that digitized libraries of the very same text do not. ” 1 There’s much to(read more)

Paratext began 2020 with a revamped interface and a name change for its flagship product. (With material dating back to the twelfth century, we’d outgrown 19th Century Masterfile.)   Over the course of the year Paratext has added five new collections to Eight Centuries—Documenting the American South, Chronicling America, the Modernist Journal Project, the British National Bibliography, and the Digital Walters Manuscript Collection.   While subject specialists(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that data from the Walters Art Museum’s “Digital Walters” manuscript collection is now accessible via Eight Centuries. This data—made available through the museum’s Digital Walters initiative—comprises over 150,000 records of folio that make up the nearly 900 illuminated medieval manuscripts in the Walters collection. Records includes full text links leading to high resolution scans of each page. Explore the Islamic world,(read more)

Paratext is proud to announce that we've added all pre-1961 British National Bibliography content to Eight Centuries. Originally founded by the British Museum and currently supported by the British Library, the British National Bibliography has continuously compiled the publishing output of Great Britain since its creation in 1949. Users can now search 158,000 records to magazines, books, and newspapers — some dating as far back as the 14th century. The BNB content embraces(read more)

Paratext has deployed metadata and links for 883 additional Cambridge University Press reference titles—including the Cambridge Companions—to the Reference Universe service.   Users will receive relevant results from the new CUP title list automatically when they perform a search in Reference Universe.   To ensure your patrons are seeing all your CUP content within the service, please update your holdings information soon through our portal. (read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that records from the Modernist Journals Project is now accessible via Eight Centuries. The Modernist Journals Project (MJP) is joint cataloging and digitizing venture between Brown University and the University of Tulsa which comprises records of journal output of the modernist literary period from 1890 to 1922. The MJP adds nearly ten thousand new periodical content records to Eight Centuries. Furthermore, in addition to the records themselves, MJP(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that additional content from Adam Matthew is now accessible via Eight Centuries.   Adam Matthew, an imprint of SAGE, is an award-winning publisher of digital primary source collections for the humanities and social sciences, covering subject areas from medieval family life to 20th-century history and culture.   Nearly 40,000 links from 11 collections have been added to Eight Century’s Image/Media section, broadening research for all(read more)

Paratext has added 160 new major reference titles from Edward Elgar, a comparatively new publisher represented within Reference Universe.   Edward Elgar has expanded dramatically in recent years, publishing 400 book and journal titles annually. Their list of 7,000 total titles focuses on business, law, the social sciences, and the emerging disciplines where these fields intersect. The article level metadata for these new titles (listed below) are now integrated into Reference(read more)

This is post continues our series exploring the oddest, most out-there corners of the history of science to be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers and other similar sources in Eight Centuries. Those unfamiliar with this fascinating source from the Royal Society should check out our description of the CSP. I recently read this post about incredibly bad smells in the New York Time’s “Good Question” series (written by the always-great Randall Munroe).1 In the post, he(read more)

Time for our final Trivia Tuesday, round 4! Every Tuesday morning in May we've posting a couple of trivia questions on our blog and Twitter to test your searching prowess. Each question has referred to a single source or set of sources found in U.S. Documents Masterfile.   This week's questions: 1. Can you find this classic comic book that talks about bicycle safety and repair? 2. I'm looking for some recipes using pork.  Can you find the(read more)

Time for Trivia Tuesdays, round 3! Every Tuesday morning in May we're posting a couple of trivia questions on our blog and Twitter to test your searching prowess. Each question will refer to a single source or set of sources found in U.S. Documents Masterfile.   This week's questions: 1. Using government documents, how can you easily create a list of the major holidays celebrated by the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu faiths? 2. As of today (May 19th),(read more)

Time for Trivia Tuesdays, round 2! Every Tuesday morning in May we're posting a couple of trivia questions on our blog and Twitter to test your searching prowess. Each question will refer to a single source found in U.S. Documents Masterfile.   This week's questions: 1. A landmark of American foreign policy, this principle was announced by President Monroe. 2. The school lunch program has been around for many years.  Find one of the reasons for its(read more)

It’s been a hard couple of months for everyone. As most academic calendars are winding down, we thought a bit of light trivia fun might help all relax a bit after this very difficult semester. Every Tuesday morning in May we will post a couple of trivia questions on our blog and Twitter to test your searching prowess. Each trivia question will refer to a single source found in U.S. Documents Masterfile.   This week's questions: 1. "He wanted to be in the room(read more)

Today we continue our series exploring the most out-of-the-way corners of the history of science to be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. Those unfamiliar with this fascinating source from the Royal Society should check out our description of the CSP. The first aerial photographs date from long before powered flight. Though we capture such pictures relatively easily using satellites and drones nowadays, people began taking photos from dizzying heights back when hydrogen balloons(read more)

Due to the highly positive response to our United States Documents Masterfile webinar last week, we are offering two more sessions for those who were unable to attend the first. Our offer of free access to United State Documents Masterfile through June of this year continues to garner a heartening response from the research and library community. We’re very happy that we can provide a service that both demystifies government documents and provides full-text access to millions of(read more)

We have had a tremendous response to our offer of free access to United State Documents Masterfile through June of this year. We’re very happy that we can provide a service that both demystifies government documents and provides full-text access to millions of government publications in this challenging time. Based on the positive response from libraries, we’re offering a webinar for existing customers of U.S. Documents Masterfile as an added benefit to the library(read more)

Editor’s note: in light of the recent influx of new U.S. Documents Masterfile users, we know the question of “why government documents?” may arise for many researchers. This post, a version of which first appeared on our blog in 2018, answers that question and more. It has been updated to reflect the current realities of the government documents world.   Part I. What, Who and Why? Unless your field is political science, law, or government history, you may not(read more)

This is the first post in a series exploring the most out-of-the-way corners of the history of science to be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. Those unfamiliar with this fascinating source from the Royal Society should check out our description of the CSP. This post is about a device that was everywhere in retail and business until roughly the 1970s, at which point it quietly dropped out of the public eye. I’m talking about the mechanical calculator called the Comptometer.(read more)

We know there is a lot going on at all of your institutions – working from home, trying to assist your users as best you can, and staying healthy and practicing social distancing. As you are trying to do your jobs remotely, we realize you may not have access to needed indexes to get you and your users to needed content.  To assist you with your work, Paratext is pleased to offer access to U.S. Documents Masterfile™ (USDM) to all institutions through end of June(read more)

With a little HTML and CSS know-how, adding our widget code to your existing library webpage is as easy as 1-2-3. Need a refresher? Not to worry, we’ve got you covered! Read on to learn where to add the code and how to customize the widget to match your library website style. These instructions will detail how to add the Eight Centuries widget code to a library website. However, fear not if you are a U.S. Documents Masterfile or Reference Universe customer: the steps are exactly the(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce the addition of two Open Access resources which join the millions of proprietary primary source records in the Eight Centuries database: Documenting the American South and Chronicling America.   These two sources add over 150,000 entirely new records, with thousands of links to high quality full text and metadata.   Documenting the American South, a project of the University of North Carolina, makes digitized content from the UNC Library(read more)

Did you know that you can quickly add access to Paratext products directly to your library’s website? We’ve done all the hard work for you: just drop our widget code into your web page wherever desired.   Widgets are available for all subscribers, no matter the product:   The History Widget allows you to provide patrons with easy access to Eight Centuries via a single search box placed anywhere within your site—even in your LibGuides. Similarly, the(read more)

Over the last month, we have made some exciting new changes to 19th Century Masterfile—not least the introduction of a new name: Eight Centuries. Additionally, we have we have added new source material to our already-extensive database, and streamlined the interface to make finding sources easier, faster, and more intuitive. See below for a detailed list of the improvements made to 8C in the new year:   Name change: 19th Century Masterfile (NCM) is now Eight Centuries(read more)

“[…] what a spot of mud on your name—I was going to say on your reign—is this abominable Dreyfus affair! A council of war, under order, has just dared to acquit Esterhazy, a great blow to all truth, all justice. And it is finished, France has this stain on her cheek, History will write that it was under your presidency that such a social crime could be committed.” –Section from “J’Accuse…!,” open letter from Émile Zola to(read more)

“It is designed, that the Country shall be furnished once a month (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener,) with an Account of such considerable things as have arrived unto our Notice.” Opening lines of Publick Occurrences, 1690     On Thursday September 25, 1690, a singular event occurred in Boston. A collaboration between a publisher, Richard Pierce, and a Londoner-turned-colonial editor, Benjamin Harris, came to fruition in the printing of a(read more)

Whirl up, sea— Whirl your pointed pines, Splash your great pines On our rocks, Hurl your green over us— Cover us with your pools of fir. “Oread,” Hilda “H.D.” Doolittle, 1914     This remains poet Hilda Doolittle’s (1886 – 1961) most famous piece of work. It is a wonderful example of the Modernist poetical school of Imagism: an effort to pare down poetry to the essentials of imagery and metaphor.1 In this case,(read more)

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC recently named Lonnie G. Bunch III as its fourteenth Secretary, the first African American to hold the position. In celebration of this occasion, let’s explore the beginnings of the Smithsonian.   The Smithsonian Institution is a remarkable institution. Founded in 1846 and sometimes called “the nation’s attic,” the institution brings millions of visitors in contact with science and history each year. Scholars(read more)

We recently augmented 19th Century Masterfile with data from the Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office. This index—and the library that spawned it—were largely the work of one incredible surgeon and bibliophile: Dr. John Shaw Billings.   We’ve all, while researching, thought to ourselves, “I sure wish the library had this particular book,” or lamented, “It sure would be great if this library’s collection was(read more)

Over the last nine months, we have made some exciting new changes to U.S. Documents Masterfile. Searches have been streamlined and more options added, the site layout refined, and metadata cleaned to provide more relevant results with each search. The new USDM is a vastly improved tool for beginner users and seasoned researchers of government documents alike. Take a look under the hood:   Search Strategies Results are now arranged by date of publication rather than by(read more)

Research often takes us in weird directions whether you are a scholar completing a chapter for a book, a student working on a project for class … or an editor checking sources for a piece of copy. Coming across the unexpected is one of the best parts of the process, and an experience I went through recently. –Ed. In a recent blog post, I mentioned that ephemeral common knowledge is one of the hardest things to preserve since it is never considered important enough to record(read more)

“Since many government publications become known by short titles that appear nowhere on the piece, and since libraries catalog them under institutional titles, a device for tying the two together is needed.” - Donald F. Wisdom, Foreword to Popular Names of U.S. Government Reports, 4th ed., 1984 A recurring challenge for historians is so-called “common knowledge.” Too often insights into day-to-day life, descriptions of extinct practices, and material(read more)

The First World War affected the world in profound and irrevocable ways, not least the field of literature. The impact of the Great War on literature has been well-documented, both in terms of how changes in outlook were reflected in the books, poems, short stories, and articles produced by during and after the war, and in terms of the generation of authors destroyed by mechanized warfare on a large scale.1 Perhaps less-studied is how the war’s effect reached the publishing industry(read more)

Exploring the Register of Debates and the Congressional Globe… Today we will look at two mainstays of early Congressional reporting: the Register of Debates and the Congressional Globe. Both dominated the journalistic world of Congress and politics in the decades before the Government Printing Office began producing its official account of Congress—the Congressional Record—in 1873. And because the two overlapped in coverage, many assumed they were partisan rivals. But(read more)

Periodical indexes are not often considered valuable source material unto themselves. There is a tendency to see them simply as neutral orderings of objective reality. After all, how can a list of sources be anything more than a means to more (and better) sources? How can a list of sources contain an agenda or narrative? Quite well, it would seem. As curated lists of source material, indexes are susceptible to internal biases and narratives as least as much as the editorial cartoons we(read more)

The primary source is the historian’s most prized asset. However, sources taken on their own are not necessarily interesting; it is how the researcher can see in them and through them, placing them in context to piece together historical narrative, that makes them intriguing. When used effectively, sources can truly be windows into history, and—like windows—they can be clear, dirty, foggy, even distorted and deceptive. Political cartoons are an example of a relatively(read more)

Exploring the NYPL Public Domain Collection… Today we will look at the New York Public Library’s Public Domain Collection. The NYPL recently made approximately 190,000 digitized public domain items from their special collections available online for unrestricted use. Why does the NYPL have such a large library of digitized material? Why do they have such a large special collection at all? To answer these questions, we have explore  the genesis of the NYPL collection in(read more)

Exploring the Farmers’ Bulletin… Our “Exploring” series continues with the Farmers’ Bulletin, a publication from the United States Department of Agriculture that first appeared in 1889. For over a century, the Bulletin has disseminated the latest research out of Agricultural Experiment Stations across the country with the aim of leading farmers to bigger crop yields and more rewarding home lives. Persuit of this goal has sometimes led the Bulletin to publish(read more)

Exploring the Annual Magazine Subject-Index… Our "Exploring" series continues with Frederick Faxon’s Annual Magazine Subject-Index, which ran from 1907 until 1949. When Faxon started his index in 1907, several large and mostly-comprehensive periodical indexes already dominated the library market. So why did he bother starting yet one more? As it turns out, this was a question front and center in Faxon’s mind from the outset—and one to which he had a(read more)

My interest in specialized subject encyclopedias predates Reference Universe. I was assigned a weekly task in my high school library of re-shelving books. It turns out that our school librarian had made a substantial investment in what were—at the time—an emerging genre: specialized subject encyclopedias. The idea of broad general encyclopedias dates to the eighteenth century. However, the publication of specialized subject encyclopedias expanded dramatically in the 1970s(read more)

Thanks to the work of EveryCRSReport.com, researchers are now able to access nearly 15,000 Congressional Research Service (CRS Reports), with links to full-text sources where available in U.S. Documents Masterfile: 1774 – 2018. EveryCRSReport.com is a joint project by Demand Progress and the Congressional Data Coalition, who have made their bulk CRS report data freely available online. Reports by the Congressional Research Service are the encyclopedic research(read more)

Exploring the Industrial Arts Index... Continuing with our “Exploring” blog series, today we will look at the Industrial Arts Index. Before the current-day crowd of scientific and engineering online discovery services existed, staying up-to-date in one’s field involved visiting the reference section of the local library and using their subject indexes. The Industrial Arts Index was one such tool, designed to make it easy to find the most widely-used and useful articles in(read more)

IGI Global and Edward Elgar Publishing continue to produce impressive major reference titles within their respective areas of expertise. With 43 new titles from IGI Global and 20 from Edward Elgar, Reference Universe: 1975-2019 has increased its core introductory content in law, economics, environmental policy, and information technology. These additions bring the total number of IGI Global Major Reference Works(read more)

Exploring Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates... At Paratext, historical sources—primary, secondary, and tertiary—are our business. Not all historical sources are immediately intuitive, and many hide fascinating stories. This is the first post in our “Exploring” blog series, which will delve into various useful sources available to researchers and scholars at all levels. We address issues of historical context, illuminate methods of use, and parse out biases(read more)

Part I: What, Who, and Why The average researcher likely doesn’t think often about government documents. Unless your specialty is political science, law, or government history, government documents don’t seem like an obvious resource to utilize. What is a specialist in literature, psychology, or biology going to find of value in government documents? The answer may surprise you. Because the work and research of government encompasses so many aspects of human society and(read more)

IGI Global and Edward Elgar Publishing continue to produce impressive major reference titles within their respective areas of expertise. With 22 new titles from IGI Global and 311 from Edward Elgar, Reference Universe has increased its core introductory content in law, economics, environmental policy, and information technology. These additions bring the total number of IGI Global Major Reference Works in Reference Universe to 506 and 1315 from(read more)

Cambridge University Press is the oldest publishing house in the world (1534) and continues to produce high quality scholarly publications in all research areas. Paratext added 631 additional Major Reference Works, including the famed Cambridge Histories to the vast introductory metadata of Reference Universe: 1975-2018. You can view the full list of the recently added Cambridge University Press titles, here. (read more)

Paratext celebrates 25 years of research database applications. “When Paratext began, the most significant 'disruption' came with the industry-wide pre-occupation with CD-ROM as a storage/delivery medium. At the time, CDs were rapidly replacing print and microfiche as the preferred delivery mechanism for large-volume research content,” according to Eric Calaluca, Paratext founder. “The expectation that CD publishing would lower costs was quickly(read more)

The Autumn of 2017 brings great new content to U.S. Documents Masterfile: 1774-2018, along with recently deployed new search utilities to improve search results, particularly for non-specialists. The following sources have just been added to U.S. Documents Masterfile. Congressional Bill Summaries, 2013-2017 U.S. Documents Masterfile recently incorporated 26,000 records from the Congressional Bill Summaries of the 113th, 114th, and 115th Congresses, starting(read more)

The Autumn of 2017 brings great new content to 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930, along with recently deployed new search utilities to improve search results, particularly for non-specialists. The following sources have just been added to 19th Century Masterfile. United States National Archives 19th Century Masterfile now contains over 1.5 million new citations from the United States National Archives image collection. The range of this collection is quite vast,(read more)

IGI Global is a leading international academic reference publisher in information science, business science, medical information science and engineering science. This week, Paratext added more than 270 additional Major Reference Works, with an emphasis on IGI Global’s contributions to STEM studies, to the vast introductory metadata of Reference Universe: 1975-2017. This new addition of nearly 16,000 article level links to the 273 most(read more)

Cambridge University Press is the oldest publishing house in the world (1534) and continues to produce high quality scholarly publications in all research areas. Paratext added 700 additional Major Reference Works, including the famed Cambridge Histories to the vast introductory metadata of Reference Universe.       (read more)

356 years after The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge held their first 'learned society' meeting in 1660, Paratext announces the addition of The Society's International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, 1901-1914 to 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930. This is the continuation of the monumental Catalogue of Scientific Papers 1800-1900, which Paratext deployed in 2012.   The International Catalogue is the largest single editorial(read more)

Elsevier remains one of the world’s leading providers in science, health, and technology discoveries. In conjunction with the efforts of Elsevier, Reference Universe: 1975-2017 aims to provide researchers with the most current, introductory works of today. With that in mind, Paratext has enhanced the Elsevier profile in Reference Universe with an additional 12,000 article level links to 257 new Elsevier major reference titles. The(read more)

Oxford University Press remains at the vanguard of authoritative and creative major reference publishing. As such, it has established a singular profile within Paratext’s Reference Universe, the unified online resource for searching; augmenting; weeding; and utilizing Major Reference Works. This week, Paratext has supplemented the OUP profile with an additional 1.7 million article level links to 263 new Oxford Major Reference titles. 555 reference titles(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that extensive content from Adam Matthew is now accessible via 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930. Adam Matthew, an imprint of SAGE, is an award-winning publisher of digital primary source collections for the humanities and social sciences, covering subject areas from medieval family life to 20th-century history and culture. Nearly 100,000 links from 33 collections are being added to 19th Century Masterfile’s Image/Media section, broadening research(read more)

Your Major Reference Collection contains unique data. The benefits are for all researchers, but particularly for advanced and graduate students looking to refine theses topics.  In order to expand the value of this more expanded query, Paratext has launched a redesigned Reference Universe with enhanced features, most specifically a See Similar Titles feature, using proximity of Library of Congress Classification to reveal titles otherwise missed.  (read more)

After 18 years in the making, Paratext can finally introduce its newest, most exciting utility for The Commons. Library practitioners can now delve deeper into the content of 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930. We’ve created a new search function which allows you to search what is inside 19th Century Masterfile by Periodical Title, Index, and by Language. This utility allows library practitioners to explore the vast coverage of historical periodical literature within 19th Century(read more)

Paratext has launched a newly designed interface for Reference Universe. Along with the redesign, two new enhancements have been deployed: Program Changes  * See Nearby Titles is now a programmed feature accessible at nearly all areas of the search architecture. This feature allows researchers to "Walk the Shelves" of both legacy print content and E-Reference titles, so other relevant content not necessarily returned in their specific search is revealed. * A new Hot Key(read more)

New Inventory and Analysis Tools for your Major Reference Works Many library administrators are being pressed to inventory, relocate and/or weed their collection of Major Reference Works. But these expensive, non-circulating titles present a unique challenge. Where to start? The Reference Universe Collection Analysis module is now online--an extension of Paratext’s Reference Universe Usage Platform. This new module allows you to: Assess the coverage of your e-Reference titles(read more)

Many bibliographers and scholars using 19th Century Masterfile have asked for expanded coverage of the visual arts. To that end, we're very happy to announce that Graves’ Indexes to Art Exhibitions 1760-1912 is now completely digitized and online in 19th Century Masterfile. Graves’ indexes are a seminal resource not only for the study of art, but for users from numerous scholarly disciplines. These indexes offer the researcher opportunities(read more)

Paratext’s 19th Century Masterfile 1106-1930 now contains links to 472,764 articles to the 380 titles within JSTOR’s Early Journal Content. The vital Early Journal Content data augments the 8,000+ journals already indexed within19th Century Masterfile, further establishing it as the essential ‘due diligence’ repository for pre-1930 studies. The Early Journal Content covers arts and humanities, economics, politics, mathematics and other sciences. Begin your(read more)

Please see this latest review of U.S. Documents Masterfile (formerly Public Documents Masterfile) in Information Advisor's Guide to Internet Research, June 2015 "We liked Paratext’s Public Documents Masterfile, and believe it provides another very good option for searching huge amounts of government information, supplemented by other public sources such as Data-Planet and Readex. We also like the fact that the database integrates such a credible and exact indexing method,(read more)

“Two databases for identifying initial overview articles deserve particular emphasis, Reference Universe and Web of Science. (pg. 2) Thomas Mann spent more than 30 years as a reference librarian at the Library of Congress, acquiring unparalleled skills in helping researchers discover new connections, pathways and higher-quality resources. The latest edition (May 2015) of his Oxford Guide to Library Research  is the best overview of major research resources, both print and(read more)

Paratext Commons is a new site for designed solely for you, our clients in academic, public and special libraries.   This site integrates all our supplementary information on content; technology; software; usage patterns and tutorials to help librarians make the most of their subscriptions to 19th Century Masterfile 1106-1930; Public Documents Masterfile 1774-2016; and Reference Universe 1975-2016.     The purpose is to explore the content and supplemental materials(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce our new Resource Usage Platform. You can measure statistics on terms, titles found, most popular queries, and which data sources are being utilized. The platform is available for 19th Century Masterfile, Public Documents Masterfile, and Reference Universe. Observe how your reference collection is being utilized: Discover how e-resources and print usage compares. Use for deeper analysis for coordinating research programs and objectives. Use(read more)

Paratext­­­TM announces that an extensive collection of Data-Planet TM DataSheets is now indexed, linked, and integrated into Public Documents MasterfileTM. Researchers can now query over 150,000 metadata records representing authoritative publicly and privately sourced datasets. Libraries who subscribe to both services can link directly from the search results to Data-Planet’s datasheets, with a visual chart, map, or graph, accompanied by(read more)

IGI Global and Paratext announce that thousands of additional links to nearly 150 IGI Global reference titles are now accessible via Paratext’s Reference Universe service. Reference Universe is the only database that provides both collection-level scope and index-level analysis of major reference works. All of IGI Global’s current works, including encyclopedias, multi-volume book collections, as well as single and two-volume handbooks of research, will now be(read more)

 Paratext announces that thousands of links to nearly 400 Major Reference Works from Cambridge Books Online will be integrated into Paratext’s Reference Universe service. Cambridge University Press’ coverage of all disciplines, at the highest scholarly level, further enhances the mission of Reference Universe, bringing the finest introductory content into the hands of researchers. Read the full press release here. (read more)

SAGE and Paratext are pleased to announce that thousands of additional links to nearly 400 SAGE Reference titles have been integrated into the Reference Universe service These award-winning titles join the nearly 45,000 represented within Reference Universe, the only research database that provides both collection-level scope and index-level analysis of Major Reference Works. Read the full press release here. (read more)

Paratext™ is pleased to announce that it has recently signed an agreement with Data-Planet to index an extensive collection of Data-Planet DataSheets within Public Documents Masterfile™ (PDM). Libraries who subscribe to both properties will link directly from search results into more than 150,000 of Data-Planet DataSheets, complete with a chart, map, or graph, statistical abstract and downloadable data-sets. Public Documents Masterfile users(read more)

A new profile of Paratext and its founder, Eric Calaluca, has been published in Against the Grain, a leading resource for the academic information community. Read the full profile here. (read more)

Paratext is proud to announce that thousands of links to nearly 250 Major Reference Works from Elsevier’s ScienceDirect will be integrated into Paratext’s Reference Universe service. Elsevier’s Major Reference Works provide foundational content that gives cross-disciplinary perspective to researchers, librarians, teachers and students worldwide. “Elsevier’s Major Reference Works provide reliable and rigorous foundational content to undergraduate, advanced,(read more)

As you may already know, access to Oxford’s sizeable collection of online reference titles recently underwent some changes. The Oxford Reference Online and Oxford Digital Reference collections were combined into one platform – Oxford Reference to make for a more intuitive research experience for users. Even better, over 200 of these valuable online reference titles are included in Reference Universe, enabling even greater discovery(read more)

The way your library users have been doing research has been changing for some time. You see it every day, eBooks are becoming dominant in modern search habits. Reference Universe remains the only collection level discovery resource focused specifically on Major Reference Works.  Enriched metadata for over 10,000 Electronic Reference titles as well as over 30,000 of your library’s legacy print holdings are now online. With new, larger eBook icons incorporated(read more)

A major enhancement to 19th Century Masterfile will be deployed in January 2013. This new enhancement includes: Faster links to the 20 million+ full text sources from both fee-based and Open Access repositories. Enhanced de-limiting functions–by date; by format; and by subject and more. Detailed resource descriptions to give users a better understanding of the context of their results. Simplified exporting of citation data in a variety of(read more)

Content for new Major Reference titles from Gale, Oxford and Blackwell will soon be added to Reference Universe. This new update adds over 170 new titles–with deep analytics for E-versions as well as their print equivalents.  This includes resources from Gale Virtual Reference Library,Wiley Online Library and Oxford Reference.  Over 45,000 titles are now part of the(read more)

The best search tool for government documents discovery has undergone a transformation.Public Documents Masterfile has a look and feel that’s brand new and enhanced search features to go with it. We’ve kept the basics that make Public Documents Masterfile so valuable to government  documents librarians. You can still search for current and historical primary sources, government documents printed by the GPO and beyond, and for a great variety of research(read more)

The Granite Monthly was a New Hampshire publication that covered news, issues of import to the society of the time and general interest articles. It now joins over 70 other valuable primary source indexes that enjoy easier discovery with one searchbox in 19th Century Masterfile. The Granite Monthly file in 19th Century Masterfile contains nearly 20,000 primary source records from 1877-1930.  Most of these citations conveniently include links(read more)

Reference Universe has now expanded to include even more titles from Credo Reference. This most recent update, which brings in 160 additional Credo Reference titles, includes leading publishers such as SAGE UK, Princeton University Press and Elsevier. Credo’s General Reference is a multi-disciplinary database focused on the most popular academic research subjects.  These authoritative reference resources cover history, medical(read more)

Detailed data to over 40 Major Reference Works from Taylor & Francis have just been integrated into Reference Universe. This major enhancement, covering works predominantly in science and technology,  includes links to the E-editions at Taylor & Francis Online, as well as the corresponding data for detailed analysis of the print editions. Taylor & Francis is a leading international academic publisher with a reputation for exceptional scientific(read more)

Over 80 new titles from Oxford University Press and Wiley now join the almost 45,000 reference titles now more accessible through Reference Universe. The most comprehensive resource for greater discovery of authoritative reference works just keeps growing. The new titles now included cover a range of subjects. Current customers will now have greater access to: Encyclopedia of Dead Sea Scrolls, Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Drug Metabolism and(read more)

The Royal Society is the oldest scientific academy still in existence, having begun in the 17th century with the regular meetings of natural philosophers interested in promoting knowledge of the natural world through observation and experiment. Paratext is pleased to announce that more than 6,000 links to the full text of the Royal Society Journals are now included in 19th Century Masterfile. The journals make up part of the more than 1,500 titles indexed within(read more)

Paratext is honored to announce that Reference Universe has been chosen as one of the CHOICEOutstanding Academic Titles of 2012. Reference Universe is one of the select few titles chosen out of the over 7,000 that were reviewed by CHOICE in 2011 to be recognized for their excellence in scholarship and the significance of their contribution to the field. According to CHOICE, the editors apply several criteria to reviewed titles including: overall(read more)

Reference Universe customers subscribing to the Wiley Online Library will now find 82 new titles from this invaluable resource included in Reference Universe. The Wiley Online Library brings many of the quality resources Wiley-Blackwell has long been known for into an easy to use online platform. The award-winning reference content included in the Wiley Online Library covers life, health, social and physical sciences, and the humanities. As one of the(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that detailed metadata from Grove Art Online and Grove Music Online from Oxford University Press are now integrated into Reference Universe. Many current Reference Universe libraries tell us that these titles are among the most heavily used within their library. Their inclusion within Reference Universe ensures increased accessibility to some of the most authoritative articles on art and music available. Grove Art(read more)

Public Documents Masterfile customers will be happy to learn that Paratext has added SuDoc numbers, LC card numbers and Item Numbers to many of the citations included in the GPO Monthly Catalog Subject Indexes (1895-1976).  Due to this inclusion, all government documents included in this index from 1947-1976 will now be considerably easier to access for Public Documents Masterfile users. Expanding the coverage of historical primary sources, we’ve also just added(read more)

Between her blog No Shelf Required and her book of the same name, Sue Polanka of Wright State University has been helping librarians understand the growing shift towards e-books and embrace the opportunities they present within traditional collection development activities. Her most recent contribution on the subject, E-Reference Context and Discoverability in Libraries: Issues and Concepts has just been released by IGI Publishing. It brings together the ideas of(read more)

The Reference Universe Administrative Module is now available!  In response to our most common request from users, the Administrative Module will greatly simplify the update process in Reference Universe. Reference Universe users can now: Immediately make additions/deletions to your Reference Universe profile as new titles are added to or weeded from your collection Keep up to date on reference titles your library may not yet have Easily(read more)

A deeper awareness of the political mechanisms and motivations of the United States government, particularly during its earliest days, is invaluable for accomplishing a greater understanding of the functions of democracy.  Public Documents Masterfileis designed to simplify the process of finding important government documents and thus help promote greater knowledge of how the United States government functions. The Annals of Congress, Register of(read more)

Your library may be considering (or have already acquired) a new ‘discovery service’ for your library to simplify searching and open up your content.  That’s good.  Wouldn’t it be better to also see your reference collection represented in these services with the kind of detail you now see within Reference Universe? Paratext is pleased to announce that some integration has already taken place, and more is to come. There are two ways to(read more)

Paratext announces that hundreds of thousands of citations from the ARTstor Digital Library will be indexed and integrated into Paratext’s 19th Century Masterfile database, allowing historians and scholars from many disciplines to expand their art history research. The ARTstor Digital Library is a nonprofit resource that provides more than one million digital images in a variety of subjects. The Digital Library serves educators, scholars, curators,(read more)

Paratext is pleased to announce that all of the reference works from the Sharpe Online Referencecollection have been added to the nearly 50,000 scholarly subject encyclopedias and other scholarly reference titles accessible via the Reference Universe service. Sharpe Online Reference (SOLR) includes the titles that make up the U.S. and Global History and Culture collections. SOLR brings together award-wining subject coverage, the convenience and flexibility(read more)

We’ve added the index to the Congressional Globe to the Annals of Congress and Register of Debatesalready found in the Congressional Record file in Public Documents Masterfile, bringing Congressional coverage up to 1867. In addition, we’ve recently updated many thousands of records to federal documents to be discovered via Public Documents Masterfile in the following: Post-1976 GPO Public Documents (1976-current) (read more)

As we’ve all been recently reminded of the important role Congress plays in ensuring the day to day functions of democracy, it can be useful to keep in mind the history of one of our most influential government institutions. 19th Century Masterfile now includes the indexes to the Annals of Congress, the Register of Debates and much of the Congressional Globe, bringing our coverage of Congressional papers up to the 39th Congress in 1867, with greater coverage(read more)

19th Century Masterfile has always been the ‘due diligence’ resource for historians. Its usefulness is now expanded to cover works in both technology and agricultural science. To that end, Paratext has significantly enhanced the scope and research value of 19th Century Masterfile for historical agricultural studies through the addition of the Index to Farmers’ Bulletin, 1889-1930. The Farmers’ Bulletin was for many years one of the most(read more)