New and Improved Databases
The following databases have either been newly acquired or improved since the last “New and Improved Databases” column was published in Humanities & History Division Newsletter (in our fifth issue, September 2015).

New

African American Communities (Adam Matthew)
“Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina, this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories.”

Archives of the Presbyterian Church of Cuba Online (BrillOnline)
This collection makes available for research the records of the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC) and predecessor Presbyterian churches and missions in Cuba, including a complete run of Heraldo Cristiano, the church’s newsletter, 1919-2010, which provides a framework for the history of the church.

Colonial America (Adam Matthew)
Colonial America will be released in five modules, organized thematically. We currently have access to: Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries. This first module documents the early history of the colonies, and includes founding charters, material on the effects of 1688’s Glorious Revolution in North America, records of piracy and seaborne rivalry with the French and Spanish, and copious military material from the French and Indian War of 1756-63. New modules are scheduled for publication annually through 2019, at which point Colonial America will be complete. The complete database will consist of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them.

Drama Online (Bloomsbury Publishing)
For description see: Featured Resource: Drama Online

The John Johnson Collection : An Archive of Printed Ephemera (ProQuest)
“This collection provides access to thousands of items selected from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Categories include Nineteenth-Century Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions, and Advertising.”

Migration to New Worlds (Adam Matthew)
Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia. This first module concentrates on the period 1800 to 1924 and covers all aspects of the migration experience, from departures to arrival and permanent settlement. Includes letter collections, travel journals, diaries, audio files of oral histories, scrapbooks, government papers, and many other types of materials.

Wan Qing qi kan quan wen shu ju ku (1833-1911) = The late Qing dynasty periodical full-text database (1833-1911)
The full-text database covers over 280,000 pieces of historical documents from 302 periodicals published during 1833-1911. The extensive collection has covered almost all the periodicals published during such critical periods later known as the Opium Wars, Westernization Movement, Reform Movement of 1898 and Revolution of 1911.

Improved

The following databases have been improved by the addition of substantial new content.

Archives Unbound (Gale)
Archives Unbound has been expanded by the addition of three modules:
1.  Country intelligence reports on China
2.  Political, economic, and military conditions in China: reports and correspondence of the U.S.
Military Intelligence Division, 1918-1941
3.  Records of the U.S. Information Service in China: Chinese press reviews and summaries, 1944-1950

Christian Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History (BrillOnline)
Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, is a general online history of relations between the two faiths as represented in works written by Christians and Muslims about the other and against the other. It has recently been expanded by the addition of Part II, which covers all parts of the world in the period 1500-1914.

Early European Books: Printed Sources to 1700  (ProQuest)
This resource has been enhanced by the addition of  Collection 2, which contains early printed volumes from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (National Central Library of Florence). Collection highlights include more than 770 editions printed by Aldo Manutius and the Aldine Press, founded in Venice in 1495; marginal notes written by Galileo on his own personal copies of works by Euclid, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso and Horace; rare first editions of the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio; volumes by the controversial preacher Girolamo Savonarola; and over 780 16th- and 17th-century editions of sacre rappresentazioni, popular verse plays depicting Biblical scenes, episodes from the lives of the saints and Christian legends.

Music Online: Classical Scores Library (Alexander Street Press)
Volume IV has recently been added to the existing database. Music Online: Classical Scores Library is a series of four volumes with a mission to provide a reliable and authoritative source for scores of the classical canon, as well as a resource for the discovery of lesser-known contemporary works. The collections encompass all major classical musical genres and time periods from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
This resource now allows you to search across 35 newspapers. These include seven titles newly available at Columbia, each of which may also be searched individually through its own database link:
Austin American Statesman (1871-1976)
Detroit Free Press (1831-1922)
Hartford Courant (1764-1990)
Louisville Courier Journal (1830-1922)
Nashville Tennessean (1812-1922)
Newsday (1940-1987)
St. Louis Post Dispatch (1874-1922)

ProQuest History Vault. Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records.
This resource has been enhanced by the addition of Part 2. The records presented in Part 2 come from the holdings of the University of Virginia and Duke University. This database includes content from two microform series: Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War and Records of Southern Plantations from Emancipation to the Great Migration.

–Blogpost compiled by: Anice Mills and John Tofanelli