By jcamins

North African resources

Languages

The major languages spoken in Morocco are Arabic (the Moroccan dialect is often called “Darija” or “Maghribi Arabic”), French, and a number of Berber languages, particularly Tamazight in the Middle Atlas region and Tashelheet (Tachelhit) in the High Atlas and Saharan regions. One of the more important sources for resources on less-commonly spoken languages is the U. S. Government’s ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database, which can be accessed at www.eric.ed.gov. ERIC records can be accessed from the website by using the ERIC number (e.g, ED401234). This guide only includes ERIC resources that are available as full-text. Many other records on related subjects can be found by using ERIC’s built-in thesaurus. Another valuable resource for learning languages is the website fsi-language-courses.com where many of the public domain FSI (Foreign Service Institute) language courses can be downloaded free of charge. Another option, which is available for nearly any language, is to participate in a language exchange. There are quite a number of websites intended to facilitate language exchanges. One website which specifically lists Moroccan Arabic is mylanguageexchange.com although it is likely Darija speakers could be found on other sites as well.

Arabic

MSA (Modern Standard Arabic, or Fusha)

Although it is technically not MSA, the Saudi Arabic course on fsi-language-courses.com provides an excellent introduction to a dialect of Arabic very close to MSA.

Darija (Moroccan Arabic)

A list of resources for learning Arabic can be found at friendsofmorocco.org. There is also an online course available at speakmoroccan.com. One of the more fun resources is the Moroccan Word a Day blog at moroccanvocab.blogspot.com. It is not updated anywhere near daily, but the selection of words is entertainingly idiosyncratic, and there are archives to browse.

ERIC resources on Darija and other Maghribi dialects:

  • Moroccan Arabic: A Competency Based Curriculum, Beginning & Intermediate Students. (ED401741)
  • Moroccan Arabic Textbook. Student Edition. (ED353812)
  • Amor, Taoufik Ben. A Beginner’s Course in Tunisian Arabic. (ED402739)
  • Ben Abdelkader, Rached, et. al. Tunisian Arabic. (ED401742)

Berber

Tamazight

An introductory audio course for Tamazight is available from the University of Wisconsin (Madison campus) at imp.lss.wisc.edu/lss/mediacat/tz/1/001/index.htm

ERIC resources on Tamazight:

  • Azaguagh, Lahcen. Tamazight: A Competency-Based Curriculum, Beginning & Intermediate Students. (ED401732)

Tashelheet

ERIC resources on Tashelheet:

  • Tashelheet: A Competency-Based Curriculum, Beginning & Intermediate Students. (ED401731)

French

ERIC resources on North African French:

  • Tunisia cours complementaire (Tunisia Complementary Course). (ED401733)
  • Corps de la Paix Tunisie: Cours de situation (Peace Corps Tunisia: Situation Course). (ED402785)
Posted in Resource guides on January 1, 2000 – 8:38 pm | Comments (0)

By jcamins

Central Asian resources

Languages

One of the more important sources for
resources on less-commonly spoken languages is the U. S. Government’s
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database, which can be
accessed at www.eric.ed.gov.
ERIC records can be accessed from the website by using the ERIC number
(e.g, ED401234). This guide only includes ERIC resources that are
available as full-text. Many other records on related subjects can be
found by using ERIC’s built-in thesaurus. Another valuable resource for
learning languages is the website fsi-language-courses.com where many of the public domain FSI (Foreign Service Institute) language courses can be downloaded free of charge.
Another option, which is available for nearly any language, is to
participate in a language exchange. There are quite a number of
websites intended to facilitate language exchanges.

Kazakh

  • Kazakh Language Course for Peace Corps Volunteers in Kazakhstan. (ED402757)
  • Cirtautas, Ilse. Kazakh: Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Kazakhstan. (ED353810)
  • seelrc.org/webliography/kazakh.ptml – An extensive webliography from the Slavic and Eastern European Language Research Center


Kyrgyz

  • Abylkasymova, Mairam and Gulaim Jumabaeva, comps. Kyrgyz Language Manual. (ED461284)
  • Cirtautas, Ilse D. Kirghiz Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Kirghizstan. (ED358742)
  • seelrc.org/webliography/kyrgyz.ptml – An extensive webliography from the Slavic and Eastern European Language Research Center


Pashto

  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Beginning Pashto: Textbook. (ED323763)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Beginning Pashto: Workbook. (ED323765)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Beginning Pashto: Workbook Tapescript. (ED323766)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Beginning Pashto: Teachers’ Manual. (ED323767)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Beginning Pashto: Glossary. (ED323768)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Beginning Pashto Textbook Revised Edition and Beginning Pashto Workbook Revised Edition. (ED364085)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Pashto-English Glossary for the CAL Pashto Materials. (ED364083)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Intermediate Pashto Textbook Revised Edition and Intermediate Pashto Workbook Revised Edition. (ED364086)

  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Intermediate Pashto. Teachers’ Manual. (ED338076)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Intermediate Pashto. Workbook. (ED338077)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Pashto Conversation Manual and Pashto Conversation Tapescript. (ED364084)
  • Tegey, Habibullah and Barbara Robson. Reference Grammar of Pashto. (ED399825)
  • gbarto.com/multilingua/ittybitty/blog/2004/10/itty-bitty-pashto-course.html – Itty Bitty Pashto course (basic vocabulary)


Persian

  • Phillott, D. C. Higher Persian Grammar. Available on archive.org – Slightly outdated, but mentioned as a classic in some of the more recent texts
  • seelrc.org/webliography/persian.ptml – An extensive webliography from the Slavic and Eastern European Language Research Center

Dari (Afghan Persian


Farsi (Iranian Persian)


Tajik (Tajiki Persian)


Russian


Turkmen

  • Tyson, David and Larry Clark. Turkmen Language Manual. (ED362052)
  • Tyson, David and Larry Clark. Turkmen Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Turkmenistan. (ED358743)
  • seelrc.org/webliography/turkmen.ptml – An extensive webliography from the Slavic and Eastern European Language Research Center


Uzbek

Posted in Resource guides on January 1, 2000 – 8:19 pm | Comments (0)

By jcamins

English-medium universities

Afghanistan

Armenia

  • American University of Armenia (aua.am)

Bulgaria

  • American University of Bulgaria (aubg.bg)

Egypt

France

  • American University of Paris (aup.fr)

Greece

  • American College of Greece (acg.edu)
  • American College of Thessaloniki (act.edu)

Hungary

  • Central European University (ceu.hu)

Italy

Kuwait

Kyrgyz Republic

Lebanon

Morocco

  • Al Akhawayn University (aui.ma)

Nigeria

Sri Lanka

Switzerland

  • Franklin College Switzerland (fc.edu)

Tajikistan

Tanzania

  • St. Augustine University of Tanzania (saut.ac.tz)

Turkey

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

United Arab Emirates

Posted in Resource guides on January 1, 2000 – 8:18 pm | Comments (0)

By jcamins

Primary texts online


General sources

Online books

  • Online Books at UPenn
  • Sacred-texts
  • Project Gutenberg
  • Archive.org
  • Google Books
  • Major Online Text Collections http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/ets/offsite.language.html

Classical sources

 Medieval sources

This fantastic website has scholarly editions of hundreds of Middle English texts, with both introductions and footnotes.

A collection of digital facsimiles of early manuscripts from Oxford University.


Modern sources

Regional (special) collections

Afghanistan

  • Afghanistan Digital Library
  • University of Nebraska Digital Commons (Afghanistan)

United States

  • American Memories

Language (special) collections

Posted in Resource guides on January 1, 2000 – 8:16 pm | Comments (0)

By jcamins

Resources for the budget-conscious rare books aficionado

Software

Cataloguing aids

       
Developed by UNESCO, IsisMarc is a standalone MARC-based cataloguing
program. It is not completely intuitive to use, but it supports such
features as authority control, and it is entirely file-based, rather
than web-based.

        A web-based cataloguing system based on ISIS. The stable
version works very well, with a very slick “Web 2.0″ interface. N.B.
Catalis is developed and documented in Spanish.

Bibliography tools

Digital resources



Bibliographic databases

        The English Short Title Catalogue contains bibliographic and census data for every (known) book published in English or in the Anglophone world prior to 1801.

        This project provides detailed bibliographic and census data, and information about contemporary reception of all known British novels published between 1800-1829.

        This project provides detailed bibliographic information about novels published in England from 1830-1836.

        This project provides detailed bibliographic and census data for incunabula.

        This project provides detailed bibliographic and limited census data for a subset of books published in Flanders during the seventeenth century.

        This project is the Dutch (i.e. Netherlands) equivalent of the ESTC.

        This project contains detailed bibliographic and limited census data for German imprints of the sixteenth century.

        This project contains detailed bibliographic and limited census data for German imprints of the seventeenth century.

Reference databases

        An index of the names of people who worked in the book trade in England and Wale up to ca 1850, with brief biographical and trade details.

        An index of the names of people who worked in the book trade in Scotland up to ca 1850, with brief biographical and trade details.

        A dictionary of terms used for describing book bindings.

        An index of the names of people who worked in the book trade in Scotland up to ca 1800, with brief biographical and trade details.

Trade sites

        One of the most popular online book marketplaces. They charge a hefty fee for listing, though, so many of the better dealers will sell a book for less if you buy direct.

        Another popular online book marketplace.

        An international antiquarian book marketplace, ZVAB was formerly the major online antiquarian book marketplace for Germany. Since their merger with ChooseBooks.com, the site apparently now offers a more international scope.


Library science

        A digital library for e-prints (etc.) of scholarly works related to library-, information-, and computer science. A review can be found at Péter’s Digital Reference Shelf (June 2007).

        Another digital library for e-prints (etc.) of scholarly works related to library-, information-, and computer science. A review can be found at Péter’s Digital Reference Shelf (May 2007).

        EBSCO’s database of library and information science-related journals and publications is freely available online. A review can be found at Péter’s Digital Reference Shelf (October 2006). 

        This site contains a number of free references of use to
cataloguers, including links to all the MARC specifications, and links
to a number of reference manuals.

Posted in Resource guides on January 1, 2000 – 8:16 pm | Comments (0)

By jcamins

Resources for the budget-conscious librarian

Software

In this section I am only including tools that are out of alpha/beta and could (in my opinion) reasonably be used in a production environment. This means that, for example, many alternative open source ILSes may be available.

Integrated Library Systems

A mature open source ILS, Koha is used by many kinds of libraries all over the world. The cataloguing interface is a little bit clunky, and setting the system up is not without its gotchas. The community is fairly supportive, though, and there are companies (such as LibLime) which will provide hosting and support services.

The other major open source ILS, Evergreen is used primarily by public libraries in North America. I haven’t used Evergreen, but it appears to have some features that Koha lacks, such as authority control.

Digital library/repository software

UNESCO-supported digital library software, Greenstone is a mature platform for building custom digital libraries

Cataloguing aids

Developed by UNESCO, IsisMarc is a standalone MARC-based cataloguing program. It is not completely intuitive to use, but it supports such features as authority control, and it is entirely file-based, rather than web-based.

A web-based cataloguing system based on ISIS. The stable version works very well, with a very slick “Web 2.0″ interface. N.B. Catalis is developed and documented in Spanish.

Bibliography tools


Digital resources

See also my resource guide for Primary texts online.

Online books

  • Online Books at UPenn
  • Sacred-texts
  • Project Gutenberg
  • Archive.org
  • Google Books
  • ERIC?
  • Major Online Text Collections http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/ets/offsite.language.html


Journals/article databases

  • Directory of Open Access Journals
  • HighWire Press
  • National Academies Press
  • Open J-Gate
  • Public Library of Science
  • PubMed
  • MedlinePlus
  • ERIC
  • Electronic Journals Library http://rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/index.phtml?bibid=AAAAA&colors=7&lang=en
  • Intute
  • ArXiv
  • BioMed Central
  • MathWorld

Reference databases

  • CIA World Factbook
  • Guidestar.org


Library science

A digital library for e-prints (etc.) of scholarly works related to
library-, information-, and computer science. A review can be found at Péter’s Digital Reference Shelf (June 2007).

Another digital library for e-prints (etc.) of scholarly works
related to library-, information-, and computer science. A review can
be found at Péter’s Digital Reference Shelf (May 2007).

EBSCO’s database of library and information science-related
journals and publications is freely available online. A review can be
found at Péter’s Digital Reference Shelf (October 2006).

This site contains a number of free references of use to
cataloguers, including links to all the MARC specifications, and links
to a number of reference manuals.

Services and resources for libraries in developing countries

Organizations and initiatives offering assistance

  • eIFL
  • INASP/PERI


Databases

  • TEFAL
  • AGORA
  • HINARI

Posted in Resource guides on January 1, 2000 – 7:39 pm | Comments (0)