Reference Sources
- Credo Reference: Dictionary of Italian Literature Online Covers the entire history of Italian literature, with entries ranging from the 13th century to the present and from Dante and Boccaccio to Umberto Eco.
- MLA Bibliography Produced by the Modern Language Association of America to provide access to journal articles, books, dissertations, working papers, proceedings, and bibliographies published worldwide, with some links to full text. Covers scholarship on literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts, and the historical aspects of printing and publishing, as well as rhetoric and composition. Coverage from 1926 to the present.
Primary Sources and Texts
- WESS: Italian Links provided by the Western European Studies Section of the American Library Association. Includes resources for history and primary documents.
- OVI Project at ARTFL "The database contains 1960 vernacular texts, the majority of which are dated prior to 1375, the year of Boccaccio's death. The verse and prose works include early masters of Italian literature like Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as well as lesser-known and obscure texts by poets, merchants, and medieval chroniclers." Detailed searching instructions on the page.
Map Databases
- David Rumsey Historical Map Collection 1000s of historical maps, focused on North and South America, but also other global maps represented.
- Harvard Map Collection Digital Maps Harvard College Library. Many maps have been digitized and can be search by geographic place or by theme. Only maps out of copyright are included (before 1923 or so).
Museum Resources on Milan
- Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense Digital collections of historical heritage
Steps in Your Research
Left: The late 16th-century city encircled by the Spanish walls (source: wikicommons)
Right: Map of central Milan (source: wikicommons)
Steps in Your Research
- Read your initial text attentively, considering what information would put the writing in context and give you a fuller understanding of it.
- Think about what sorts of publications the information you need might be published in
- Look up background information in the reference materials, e.g., Credo Reference, encyclopedias, atlases and histories, etc.
- Use terminology and facts learned from background sources to search for articles in historical newspapers and periodical databases.
- Search for books (memoirs, collections of letters, biographies, diaries, special histories) in any of Colby's catalogs, expanding your search with subjectlinking
- Ask your librarian! kjgillum@colby.edu
Find Books and Media
- CBBcat - The Library Catalog of Colby, Bates & Bowdoin
Search for books, CDs, videos and more. - WorldCat
Search for books and other materials held in libraries worldwide. Order through ILLiad.
Searching Tips:
- Use quotes to glue a phrase together. E.g., "Milanese Design"
- Use an asterisk as a wild card to cover word variations. E.g., Urban* (for Urban, Urbanized, Urbanist)
- Broaden your search by using OR with parentheses. E.g., (Milan OR Italy). Results can contain either term.
- Narrow your search by using AND. E.g., Milan AND Florence. Results must contain both terms.
- Find one good item? Click on a record's Subject Headings to find similar material.
- Expand your reach, sign up for ILLiad, our Interlibrary loan service.
- Order directly from within WorldCat by clicking on Request through ILLiad@Colby.
CBBcat Subject Headings
Click on these links to find similar items. CBBcat uses Library of Congress Subject Headings. Unfortunately, these headings sometimes use outdated terminology, but once identified they can often provide much more precise search results than using keywords. Examples of LOC Subject Headings:
Spanish Milan by ISBN: 9781137003829Publication Date: 2012-09-25This book provides a broad overview of the main features of Spanish Milan and their transformations during the 16th and 17th centuries. At the same time, it addresses an important and long-lasting historiographical debate that traditionally interpreted the Spanish period as one of decline for Italian cities in general and Milan in particular.
