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Subject-specific eGuides

Modern and Medieval Languages

Searching for resources

There are two key library catalogues you may use when studying at Cambridge:

Girton Library catalogue (Heritage) – search Girton Library’s collection and see if items are available or already on loan. See our eGuide for further information.

iDiscover – to search across the University’s print and electronic collections (including books, eBooks, journals, newspapers, articles and much more, from other colleges, faculty and department libraries, and the University Library. Most, but not all, of Girton’s collection can be found here. See our Searching iDiscover eGuide for further information.

You will be able to borrow from Girton’s Main Library and the University Library. Your subject-specific library is the MMLL Faculty Library. However, there may be other libraries within Cambridge which stock useful resources. For a full list of the Cambridge libraries see the directory and check each library for access guidelines.

Subject-specific resources

Multi-language

  • MLA International Bibliography The MLA International Bibliography, produced by the Modern Language Association of America, is a classified listing and subject index of books and articles in the fields of modern languages, literatures, linguistics, and folklore. Links to electronic journal articles in JSTOR and Project Muse are provided.
  • Cite them right online The essential referencing resource. This site will help you to reference just about any source, and understand how to avoid plagiarism.
  • MHRA Style Guide An essential reference for scholars, students and editors in the Modern Humanities. Originally codified for our own use, MHRA style has since 1971 been used much more widely, and today many universities require dissertations to follow it.

Language-specific or period-specific

  • BDSL The online version of the Bibliographie der Deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft.
  • Iter Bibliography 1.1 million citations for secondary material about the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, 400-1700.
  • You might also like to look at the freely-available journals which are part of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
  • Foreign language newspapers, magazines and television stations There are many newspapers accessible via university subscriptions. For a full list see: Newspaper LibGuide.

Gateways / collections

Individual titles

Finding ebooks

You can find most of the university’s ebooks via iDiscover. 

There are also ebooks available via Open Access. Freely-available text collections include:

Useful reference management software

  • Zotero The only research tool that automatically senses content in your web browser, allowing you to add it to your personal library with a single click.
  • Mendeley Reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online and discover the latest research.
  • Endnote Reference management software used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles.
  • Reference Management Guide Reference management guide sorted by subject.

Free Language Dictionaries

Computer-aided Language Learning (CALL)

The MMLL Faculty has a well-equipped CALL facility (Computer-Aided Language Learning) in the South Wing of the Raised Faculty Building. You are advised to familiarise yourself with the resources there as early as possible in your first year.

Useful resources for different Languages

Romance Languages:

French

  • Oxford French Dictionary
  • CAIRN French Studies Collection A database of French journals in humanities and social sciences.
  • Corpus de la littérature médiévale des origines au 15e siècle French medieval literature texts (full-text and searchable). Also accesible via Classiques Garnier Numerique.
  • Corpus des dictionnaires de l'Acadèmie française French dictionaries (17-20th c.) Also accesible via Classiques Garnier Numerique.
  • Corpus Montaigne Description of this database.
  • Grand corpus des grammaires françaises, des reqmarques et des traités sur la langue (XIVe-XVIIe siècles) The "Grand Corpus des Grammaires Françaises, des Remarques et des Traités sur la Langue XIVe-XVIIe siécles" ("Great Corpus of French language Grammars, Commentaries and Treatises on language (14th-17th centuries)") groups together in one database the "Corpus of French Renaissance grammars," the "Corpus of French 17th century grammars" and the "Corpus of remarks on the French language (17th Century)." This is close to representing all the French grammars from the 14th to the 17th centuries. Each grammar is presented both in fully searchable keyed text, as well as facsimile page images.
  • Gallica Begun in 1997 as the major digitization project at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Gallica includes full-text and page-images of hundreds of thousands of volumes from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on nineteenth-century material. Designed as the digital repository of French culture, Gallica covers virtually all areas of human inquiry, in particular history, literature, science, philosophy, law, economics, and political science. Gallica contains dictionaries and encyclopedias; journals, newspapers, and other periodicals; pamphlets; theater; poetry; novels and other prose texts; manuscripts; recordings; and images. Various collections compose "Les Dossiers de Gallica," such as Gallica Classique (Garnier editions), le dossier Proust, Voyages en France, Voyages en Afrique, La Bibliothèque de Voltaire à la Bibliothèque nationale de Russie, Le Rêve d'Emile Zola dans tous ses états, le dossier Utopie, Le dossier "Sociétés Savantes (d'Aquitaine et de Lorraine), and an audio collection, La Voix sur Gallica (poetry and politics).
  • ​​Erudit's Études littéraires journal
  • Littératures du Maghreb
  • île en île
  • Un site culturel et littéraire francophone
  • Equinoxes A graduate journal of french and francophone studies.
  • Journal of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies
  • Vacarme
Gateways/Portals for French students/researchers

Italian

  • DanteNet Links to the Dante Society of America and the Princeton and Dartmouth Dante projects.
  • Renaissance Dante in Print Digitised covers of the Divine Comedy from the Zahm Collection at the University of Notre Dame.
  • Decameron Web A growing hypermedia archive of materials dedicated to Boccaccio's masterpiece.
  • Torrossa Italian platform for journals, ebooks and conference proceedings in the humanities and social sciences.

Spanish & Catalan

Portuguese

Germanic Languages:

German

Slavonic Languages: 

For more information on Medieval studies, see The Slavonic and East European Medieval Studies Group, Cambridge Byzantine Seminar. 

Additional databases can be found in the list of Eastern European Area Studies databases. Please also be sure to check the list of extra Slavonic resources (COVID-19).

Ukrainian

E-resources related to Church Slavonic

Polish

Russian

Online Dictionaries
E-resources related to Church Slavonic

 

Help within college

Library staff can provide support and assistance. You can book an appointment with us or ask a question via library@girton.cam.ac.uk.

Library Guides

We have wide range of guides for College members to use

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