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Primary Resources for French Studies: The Wider World, Bibliographically

This is a guide for finding primary sources about France/the French, including Special Collections' French Monarchy Collection. Last updated 06-26-2023

The Wider World, Bibliographically

To identify and locate materials on topics where M.S.U. Libraries does not have much, you can try these strategies.

AIFBD Association Internationale Francophone des Bibliothecaires et Documentalistes

Is an international association dedicated to the networking of French-speaking librarians and documentalists, as well as their promotion in their professional environment. Might be helpful in locating research materials.

Center for Research Libraries

This research guide has a separate page about the Center for Research Libraries, here.  This is a library for libraries in Chicago which collects primary resources on a scale and at a depth which no one library in America could afford or would need to own on its own. We borrow materials from CRL for our patrons via Interlibrary Services. Their catalogue is on the internet.  A number of sources on this bibliography in the MICROFORMS section are held there, not here at M.S.U. To find out what is in these sets, check the CRL online catalog.

Heritage of the Printed Book Database

Includes over 660,000 records for European printing of the hand-press period from the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), whose 48 members represent national and university libraries in 25 countries, including North American libraries. This is the first and only online union catalog for European hand press books produced c1455 to 1830. The Consortium seeks to share resources and expertise between research libraries with a view to improving access to, as well as exploitation and preservation of the European printed heritage in the hand-press period (up to c. 1830). The Consortium was formed in 1992 on the initiative of research libraries in many European countries and legally came into being in June 1994.