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These Web sites provide information, links, and online catalogs relating to libraries and archives. Also included are electronic libraries, history of the book, and general bibliographic databases. For information about and links to all the national libraries of Europe, visit The European Library Web site. Consult the Library of Congress' catalog at http://catalog.loc.gov.
Index to this page:
Libraries
Central University Libraries
Descriptions of Romanian Collections Outside of Romania
Electronic Libraries
History of the Book
Archives
Biblioteca Academiei Române (http://www.biblacad.ro)
The Romanian Academy Library possesses one of the most important collections in Romania. Searchable online catalog (RAL) contains more than 70,000 entries, mostly publications since 1996. The library is also working on a catalog of special collections (ORB), which includes both monographs published prior to 1830 (Carti vechi romanesti) and manuscripts of all eras. The searchable ORB catalog contains approximately 5,000 entries. The institution has also started a digital library of manuscripts relating to national poet Mihai Eminescu. Response is slow but reliable. In Romanian (the most complete interface) and English.
Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei (http://www.bibnat.ro)
The National Library of Romania possesses one of the largest collections in the country. The online catalog became Internet accessible in March 2002, with over 100,000 records reflecting the library's holdings of books from Romania published since 1992 and foreign books published since 1995. In Romanian and English.
The four libraries given below have been designated as Central university libraries, with better allocations than other university libraries. All four maintain online catalogs, though not all of them are available over the Internet. The online catalogs of these libraries generally range from 150,000 up to 400,000 records, primarily reflecting acquisitions from the early 1990s to the present. Some of these libraries have created bibliographic indexes to articles. All four welcome reference questions by email.
Bucharest Central University Library (http://www.bcub.ro)
Biblioteca Centrala Universitara din Bucuresti. In Romanian.
Cluj Central University Library (http://www.bcucluj.ro/english/index.html)
In Romanian and English.
Iasi Central University Library (http://www.bcu-iasi.ro)
Biblioteca Centrala Universitara Mihai Eminescu Iasi. In Romanian.
Timisoara Central University Library (http://www.bcut.ro)
Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Eugen Todoran. In Romanian.
Other libraries with important Romanian collections include Rumänische Bibliothek at the University of Freiburg, Germany; Bibliothèque nationale de France; New York Public Library; the Romanian Cultural Center in New York; and the university libraries of Boston College, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Washington, and Yale.
The British
Library. Romanian Collections (http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelplang/romanian/romainiancollections/romaniancollections.html)
The exact size of the Romanian holdings is not known, since there is no separate catalogue and materials are dispersed within the rest of the collections. There are approximately 7,700 titles in Romanian in the H&SS Current Catalogue (which covers items acquired since 1975). Collections now include previously forbidden, unpublished works, printed ephemera (election literature), and a number of independent newspapers.
U.S. Library of Congress.
European Reading Room. Romanian Collections at the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/coll/roma.html)
Romanian collections at the Library of Congress are the largest in the Americas and probably the largest outside of Romania and Moldova. Monographic works either published in Romania or which pertain to Romania total approximately 40,000 titles. The vast majority of these works are in the Romanian language, with approximately10 percent in English. There are also large numbers of pertinent monographs in German, French, Hungarian, Russian, and Italian, with many other languages also represented. If multi-volume sets, annuals, and bound periodicals, are included, the Library is in possession of nearly 75,000 volumes. The vast majority were published after 1945. More than 3,000 earlier titles are held, with a few dating back to the 17th century. Music, maps, photographs, and other formats are also well represented.
Biblioteca românească (http://biblioteca.euroweb.ro)
Provides the texts of numerous works by important Romanian authors of all eras in areas such as philosophy; aesthetics; sociology; history; library and information science; classical; contemporary and popular literature; and literary history and criticism. Includes a few translations into English and German; information on additional Romanian e-books available commercially; a calendar of holidays and events; a biographic dictionary of contemporary Romanian writers; and links to additional cultural and book-related Web sites. In Romanian.
Biblioteca Virtuală Asalt (http://asalt.tripod.com/biblioteca.htm)
Provides a platform primarily for Romania's younger generation to showcase samples of their works, including poetry, prose, and drama. In Romanian.
Internet Public Library
(IPL): Online Texts Collection (http://www.ipl.org/div/books/index.html)
Search on Romania for resources in books and subject collections.
Online books page (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/)
OPB links to more than 25,000 freely available e-books (accessed on January 16, 2006), with several hundred added each month. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Library and is created by a University of Pennsylvania researcher, who welcomes information about additional online books. There are at least a dozen books in English concerning Romania. Most can be found by searching title keywords (Romania, Romanian, Romanians, Rumania, Rumanian, Rumanians, Transylvania, Transylvanian, and so forth); others can be found by searching by subjects, especially the category "DR Balkan Region."
Book History Online (http://www.kb.nl/bho/index.html)
The National Library of the Netherlands maintains the International Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries, an online bibliographic database which includes citations to hundreds of works pertaining to the individual countries of Eastern Europe, mostly from periodicals and books of that region.
Carte veche (http://www.cimec.ro/carte/cartev/carte.htm)
The Institute for Cultural Memory (Bucharest) provides a catalog of Romanian books published in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a brief history about early printing in Romania. Mostly in Romanian; partially in English.
Hoover Institution
Archives. Romanian Collections (http://www.hoover.org/hila/collections/5681991.html)
Manuscript collections from Romanian emigres. The collections contain approximately 15,000 volumes of monographs, 70 periodical titles, 60 newspapers, and 70 archival collections. They also have unique materials documenting the formation of the modern Romanian state in 1859, the two world wars, interwar political life, the Bessarabian problem, the communist takeover, émigr´ affairs, and post-1989 developments.
Ready, 'Net,
Go! (http://www.tulane.edu/%7Elmiller/ArchivesResources.html)
An archival meta index. Offers access to master lists, tools, archival search engines, and professional resources. From Tulane University.
State Archives of Romania (http://www.progenealogists.com/romania/)
Addresses for county-level archives.
U.S. Library of Congress.
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/)
The NUCMC Web site, maintained by the Library of Congress, informs on its program and links to the Archival and Mixed Collections of the RLG Union Catalog and to OCLC MSS Records. Both the RLG and OCLC MSS catalogs include records pertaining to Romania. Each of these two MSS union catalogs contains records not found in the other.
U.S. National
Archives and Records Administration. Archival Research Catalog (ARC) (http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/index.html)
ARC is the online catalog of NARA's nationwide holdings in the Washington, DC, area, regional archives and presidential libraries. There are more than 500 references to Romania under keywords Romania, Romanian, Romanians, Rumania, Rumanian, Rumanians, Transylvania, etc.
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