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Online Reference Shelf
Penn State Digitized Collections and Projects

Recent Books in the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Annual Reviews
A collection of comprehensive critical reviews of the literature in 30 disciplines in the Biomedical, Physical, and Social Sciences. The reviews are written by leading scientists in the fields, and are heavily cited and highly ranked in terms of impact factors. Coverage is back to 1996, and is updated yearly.

CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online)
A comprehensive source for research in international affairs. It includes full text of selected books on international affairs, working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences. It also, contains abstracts and some full text of selected journal articles.

CQ Electronic Library
A reference source for research in American government, politics, history, public policy, and current affairs. The suite includes the online version of

  • CQ Weekly
  • CQ Researcher
  • CQ Congress Collection
  • CQ Voting and Elections Collection
  • CQ Historic Documents Online

HRAF- Human Relations Area Files
The Human Relations Area Files are designed to facilitate the cross-cultural study of human society, culture, and behavior. Two HRAF databases are available: Ethnography Collection and Archaeology Collection. They provide full-text access to source material on a wide variety of cultures around the world, as well as a cultural summary and bibliography for each culture covered.

LIAS provides access to two HRAF databases. They are available only to Penn State users.

HRAF — Human Relations Area Files — Ethnography Collection. This database is an important resource in the field of cultural anthropology. The Ethnography Collection is a compilation of ethnographic and other texts that are indexed by culture and subject.    
Click here to go to HRAF – Human Relations Area Files – Ethnography Collection.

HRAF — Human Relations Area Files — Archaeology Collection. The Collection of Archaeology provides access to archaeological materials for comparative studies within and across regions.
Click here to go to HRAF – Human Relations Area Files – Archaeology Collection.

Full-Text Literature Databases
A guide to library databases containing poetry, short fiction, drama and other literary works.

Gutenberg-e (Scholarly history books)
The Gutenberg-e titles are selected for their scholarship and innovation by the American Historical Association, and produced by the Columbia University Press. The electronic editions offer added elements including, hyperlinks to supplementary literature, images, music, video, and links to related web sites.

Historic Documents Series Online
Historic Documents Series Online Edition collects more than 2,500 primary sources covering current events around the world from 1972 to present. Each source document is preceeded by an introductory essay giving context to the source. Users can search by keyword, or browse by topic or date. Topics range from presidential speeches to statements by sports figures such as Magic Johnson on his retirement from the NBA.

netLibrary
Shared collection of current e-books. Access is made available through consortial arrangements with PALCI and the State Library of Pennsylvania. MARC records are made available through the State Library. Guide to using netLibrary

Past Masters (full text philosophy books)
Past Masters encompasses the largest collection of full-text electronic editions in philosophy in the world. The series includes important works in the history of political thought and theory, religious studies, economics, classics, history, and German studies. The databases are based on excellent editions, in both original language and in English translation, using meticulous text conversion processes. Combined with powerful web-based search and reference tools, the Past Masters series provides scholars with significantly-enhanced and highly-flexible access to the classic texts of philosophy.

Source OECD
Full-text book and serial publications from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Also includes many of the data sets available from the organization.

Recent Books in the Sciences, Technology, & Medicine

Annual Reviews
Annual Reviews is a collection of comprehensive critical reviews of the literature in 30 disciplines in the Biomedical, Physical, and Social Sciences. The reviews are written by leading scientists in the fields, and are heavily cited and highly ranked in terms of impact factors. Coverage is back to 1996, and is updated yearly.

ASAE Technical Library
All of the recent technical documents published by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers including full text access to journals, standards, technical reports, conference proceedings, and monographs.

ASM Handbooks Online
This resource features extensive engineering and property data for materials of all types. It contains the fulltext of several ASM handbooks including the Metals Handbook and the Engineered Materials Handbook.

Beilstein/Gmelin (Chemistry)
Beilstein and Gmelin are handbooks that cover organic chemistry and inorganic/organometallic chemistry respectively back to the late 1700s. They are searchable by property values or by chemical structures using CrossFire software. You must install the software on your workstation in order to access the databases. To obtain the information needed to download the software, please contact njb2@psu.edu and request it. Please use your PSU e-mail account. The contact information will not be sent to a non-PSU e-mail account.

CHEMnetBASE(chemistry, physics, polymers)
A collection of dictionaries and handbooks providing information on chemical compounds, polymers, and physics data.

ENGnetBASE (engineering handbooks)
A collection of over 100 handbooks covering all fields of engineering.

Knovel (engineering and science handbooks)
Knovel contains over 800 engineering and science handbooks, and related databases. The system has interactive capabilities that provide analytical tools to analyze the data they contain and produce tables and graphs.

McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology (via Access Science)
The world's leading science encyclopedia in online form. The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology delivers full-text high-quality encyclopedia articles in all areas of science.

MD Consult Core Collection
MD-Consult includes over 40 full text medical reference books, more than 50 full text medical journals, access to MEDLINE, comprehensive drug information, over 600 clinical practice guidelines and approximately 3,500 customizable patient education handouts

Safari
Safari provides electronic access to computer manuals from a number of publishers including O'Reilly, Microsoft, Peach Pit Press, New Rider Press, Sams, Que and Cisco. This product allows the user to search across a number of different manuals. simultaneously. Content is updated three times a year.

MIT CogNet
MIT CogNet, the Cognitive and Brain Sciences Community Online, provides access to a searchable, full-text library of books, journals, and reference works from the MIT Press, as well as content and links to resources from other publishers, professional associations, institutions, and individuals. Additional features are conference materials, a directory of cognitive science programs, threaded discussion groups, job listings and other career information, and more.

netLibrary
Shared collection of current e-books. Access is made available through consortial arrangements with PALCI and the State Library of Pennsylvania. MARC records are made available through the State Library.

STATRef (nursing, biomedical books)
STATRef provides access to a number of full-text electronic biomedical and nursing reference books.

Historical Collections: Books published before 1950

ARTFL (French literature)
Full text database ranging from classic works in French literature to nonfiction prose and technical writings. About 2,000 texts, mostly from the18th-20th century.

The Bible in English
The Bible in English contains twenty versions of the Bible, from Old English, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and into the twentieth century. In addition to the twelve complete Bibles, there are five New Testament works, two Gospel works and William Tyndale's New Testament, Pentateuch and Jonah translations.

Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts
The Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts is an exhaustive resource for historians, theologians, political scientists, and sociologists studying the religious and social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries. DLCPT gives researchers immediate, Web-based access to an extensive range of seminal works from the Reformation and post-Reformation eras. With new content uploads occurring on a weekly basis, the database offers a constantly growing treasury of theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, and polemical treatises written by more than 300 Protestant authors.

Early American Imprints II: Shaw-Shoemaker 1801-1819
Provides full-text access to some 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early nineteenth century. The works cover all aspects of American life, including scientific thought, religion, politics, arts and literature, economics, Indian relations, military affairs, Westward expansion and more. The database is based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, supplemented by thousands of newly identified items.

Early English Books Online
Early English Books Online contains over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard's and Redgrave’s Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing’s Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661). Includes works by Malory, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton, and Galileo. Novels, prayer books, pamphlets, almanacs, calendars, and many other types of primary sources are included.

Early American Imprints Series I. Evans (1639-1800)
Digitized facsimiles of publications produced in the American colonies and the early United States. Derived from entries listed in Charles Evans's American Bibliography, and supplemented from other sources, it includes books, pamphlets, and broadsides on many topics, and is a fundamental resource for early American history, literature, philosophy, and religion.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Full texts and images of titles and editions printed in the British Isles and the Americas between 1701 and 1800

PA's Past: Digital Bookshelf
An online collection of historical works, including Pennsylvania county histories, atlases, illustrated works, Civil War histories, writings by and about prominent Pennsylvanians, and publications produced by state and local historical agencies.

Women's History Online, 1543-1945 (Gerritsen Collection)
Full text books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights through 1945. Includes materials from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. The anti-feminist case is presented as well as the pro-feminist; documenting the condition of women at a given time.

E-Book Collections & Projects on the Web

A9 "Search Inside the Book"
"Over 100,000" Searches books available on Amazon.com, including the full-text of selected works from over 190 publishers. Results include links to page images where available. Generally able to browse a few pages of copyrighted work.

Bartelby
Several hundred Canonical works of fiction and non-fiction. Probably best known for its collection of classic reference works.

Digital Books Index
114,000+ eBooks & eTexts (75,000+ Free) A guide to E-books available from various sites (Project Gutenberg, NetLibrary, etc.). Particularly helpful for the ability to browse by subject headings. Indicates whether the book is free or available for sale.

Google Books Beta (formerly Google Print)
At least 10,000 titles. Plan for millions of titles in near future. Searches the full-text of out of copyright books from library collections, and current works from publishers. Includes, fiction, non-fiction, reference, textbooks, children's books, scientific, medical, professional, etc… Out-of-copyright works can be viewed in their entirety. Only snippets of in-copyright works can be seen.

Making of America
About 9,500 books and 50,000 journal articles. A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.

Online Books Page (UPenn)
A database of books that are freely readable over the Internet. The over 25,000 listings can be searched or browsed by author, title, and subject. Each listing is linked to an outside Web site, making its availability unpredictable, but the shear number of books that are accessible make the Online Books Page a great resource.

Open Content Alliance
Demo of scanned content at http://www.openlibrary.org/. A collaboration between major library organizations, publishers, governmental agencies. Partners include Yahoo, the Internet Archive and the Research Libraries Group . The aim is to provide a freely available corpus of information. They plan to start with a few thousand American literature volumes, and scale up to millions of works.

Project Gutenberg
About 17,000 — the first, and one of the largest, collections of free electronic books. Includes only out-of-copyright books (published before 1923).

Scholarship Editions (Univ. Press Titles)
1,800 books, about 500 free A collection of academic titles from the University of California Press. Includes books in a range of topics, including art, science, history, music, religion, and fiction. About 25% are available free of charge.

Universal Library
About 36,000. Aim for millions in 10 years. An effort to create a free, searchable collection of millions of books. Content reflects the project partners mostly in the United States and Asia. Titles do not appear to be indexed by Google.
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