The Internet has transformed research. But until I began taking college classes again, I didn’t understand how much an academic library can help me take advantage of it.
If you use Google Scholar, you come upon rich sources of information, but unless you have an avenue through a library, many of them are closed to you. As a student at NC State Library, I can check a box and every listing to which NC State has arranged a relationship will be marked “Find Text at NC State.”
I just found online the complete 1744 “Essay Presented, or a Method Humbly Proposed, to the Consideration of the Honorable the Members of Both Houses of Parliament by an English Woolen Manufacturer…” (a petition for subsidies). I can’t link you to it because of its limited access; nor can I give you access to the multitude of articles I have read from journals such as Past and Present, the Journal of Economic History, the Journal of French Historical Studies, etc. Reaching this treasure trove is not cheap. You have to take at least one course ($2600 at the graduate level) but you are treated like a king.
And then there is TripSaver, a truly remarkable service. If NC State doesn’t have a holding, you click on TripSaver and suddenly the full citation is there for you; all you have to do is click Submit. A book or electronic section will be sent from another library in a few days—or less.
Among many finds, I have received an electronic chapter in French from Jacques Garello’s “Aimez-vous Bastiat?” (which appears to exist in only one college library in the United States); a 1910 article on correspondence schools from Education; a 1932 University of Chicago dissertation; books from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi as well as closer places like Duke University and UNC-Greensboro; and microfilm reels of nineteenth-century letters by the librarian of the Wisconsin legislature. (Tripsaver even obtains books from the luxurious library across the railroad tracks at Centennial Park, letting me pick them up at D. H. Hill.)
Still, what I like best is the word “Available” when I look for a book on the library’s website. Then I can take a pleasant trip through the stacks, obtaining my book but also leafing through others. Despite the prominence of science and technology at NC State, there are substantial humanities holdings in the Hill Library.
Or there were. Unfortunately, two floors of stacks have been removed and sent to book heaven (the glassy library beyond the tracks where imperturbable bookbots handle the books). Those two floors of D.H. Hill will house a new Academic Success Center, “an engaging, one-stop hub for learning, research, sharing ideas, and exploring new technologies.” Okay, real books are “history.” And, soon enough, so will be the people who love them.
Jane, I am late to the party reading your great insights, but here is my first comment. I know that years ago Google was scanning millions of library books about a decade ago. My first thought is that I hope your library’s overseers considered contacting Google to see if it wanted to scan any of them; far better for these old texts to be scanned and available for download than to let them rot where they have virtually no chance for being seen again. Of course, maybe the offer was made and Google deemed them too obscure to warrant the investment. My second thought is do you know how to access the books that Google scanned? I haven’t researched it so I don’t have a clue.
Craig, thank you for this comment! Yes, Google has scanned millions of library books. I don’t know NC State’s connection to the project, if any, but the library does provide access to many of them. I heard from a librarian that NC State has access to something like 4 million books online. I’m not sure anything is too obscure to be copied. Other organizations, such as HathiTrust, also provide access (some books available to all, some restricted by copyright). The trust involves seventy research organizations “working together to ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of the cultural record.” It has digitized more than 10.5 million volumes.