Cambridge Books Online monographs trial

The ebooks@cambridge team is pleased to announce that Cambridge users now have access to nearly 14,000 new monographs on Cambridge Books Online and CUP's University Press Online ebook platforms.

Please link to the blogpost on the ebooks@cambridge blog which explains more about the trial, which they intend will continue until the end of April 2014.

Please let me have any feedback you have on this trial at ja215@cam.ac.uk

Very Short Introductions trial

The ebooks@cambridge team have just launched a trial to Very Short Introductions. There are 363 titles in the collection, which will be available until 31st December 2013. They are in subject areas in Arts and Humanities, Law, Medicine and Health, Science and Mathematics and Social Sciences. Titles in the Biological Sciences include: The Animal Kingdom, The Cell, The History of Life and Marine Biology.

For more information please see their blog post where there is a link to the trial itself.

Please let me have any feedback you have on this trial at ja215@cam.ac.uk

Ebrary's 'Academic Complete' trial

There is a trial of Ebrary’s ‘Academic Complete’ ebooks running from now until Wednesday 8^th January 2014.

 

All 87,411 ebook titles are searchable in LibrarySearch (they should be hard to miss!), or you can browse the collection on the ebrary platform from the following link:

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/camuk/

The Academic Complete collection consists of around 90,000 back-list titles published prior to 2012, although Wiley is a major publisher within the collection which offers front-list publications. Other publishers covered include Brill, Cornell University Press, Harvard University Press, John Benjamins, Johns Hopkins University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Yale University Press.

Please let me have any feedback you have on this trial at ja215@cam.ac.uk

E-books lunchtime drop-in session on Wednesday 27th November

Want to learn more about how to find and use e-books? Have you got a Kindle, an iPad, a Nook, or a Smart Phone but aren't sure which of the library e-books you can read or download onto it?

An ebooks@cambridge lunchtime drop-in session will be held in Room LR5 at the Department of Engineering from 1-2pm on Wednesday 27th November.

Come along to the drop-in session and bring your devices if you have one, Wi-fi will be available, otherwise just bring yourself! All students and staff are welcome to drop by and ask us questions.

If you have any questions about the event please contact the ebooks@cambridge team on ebooks@lib.cam.ac.uk

Rare book now on display

 

 

 

A history of the birds of Europe including all the species inhabiting the Western Palaearctic region, by Henry E. Dresser. Volume 2. London: Published by the author; 1871-1887.  

 

Due to popular demand, more remarkable plates from this work will be on display throughout the year!

 

Balfour Library shelf mark: qKZ.4 (1)

 

The book is open at: Plate 51, Erithacus rubecula (Redbreast, more commonly known as a Robin). This plate is a hand coloured lithograph produced by J. G. Keulemans, a renowned ornithological illustrator, and depicts an adult male and a young redbreast perching on a branch. The breast of the adult male is a vivid shade of orange which belies its name but is more realistic. The fine detail in the hand colouring of Keulemans’ lithograph is especially noticeable in the plumage of the young redbreast but as with all of his lithographs it is the eyes that are one of the most striking features.

 

Henry Eeles Dresser (1838-1915) was born in Thirsk. After his schooling in Bromley, Kent and at a German school near Hamburg he entered his father’s timber-merchant business and travelled extensively in northern Europe from 1834 to 1862. From his time at school in Germany he began to systematically collect the eggs and bird skins of Palaearctic birds. He deposited some 12,000 items at the Manchester Museum from 1899 onwards.

 

Dresser left England with a cargo for Texas in 1863 and spent over a year collecting there. Shortly after his return to England he published his first scientific paper, Notes on the birds of southern Texas, in Ibis in 1865. He continued to contribute to Ibis from then until 1909; and also joined the British Ornithologist’s Union in the same year. He was also a member and fellow of the Linnean Society and Zoological Society of London, and was an honorary fellow of the American Ornithologist’s Union. He was an authority on the birds of Europe and the author of several important works, including A history of the birds of Europe. Eight quarto volumes of this were published between 1871 and 1881, which were illustrated with 633 hand coloured plates, mainly prepared from drawings by Joseph Wolf, J. G. Keulemans and E. Neale.

 

After returning from Texas, Dresser started work in the iron trade in London but continued to travel extensively throughout the whole of his life.

 

John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912) provided the plate on display here. He was a Dutch bird illustrator who worked in London from 1868 and regularly provided illustrations for Ibis and The Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and many important bird books such as A history of the birds of Europe. His illustrations were produced through traditional lithography [a method for printing using a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface], allowing for a finished product that depicts a vivid, life-like figure through depth and tone.

Professor Alfred Newton subscribed to A History of the Birds of Europe as it was published in its parts. He has made a note inside the first volume of the number of subscribers (374), the top three of whom are “His Majesty the King of Italy, H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh K.G., H. H. Duleep Singh, Elveden Hall, Thetford”, in that order. Interestingly, the Newton family lived on the Elveden Estate on the Norfolk-Suffolk border until Newton’s father died in 1863.

The robin can be seen throughout the year but is particularly associated with Christmas time. According to the RSPB robins are aggressively territorial and are quick to drive away intruders. This presents a very different view to their depiction on Christmas cards!

Sources:

Animal Diversity Web http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/

Dresser’s obituary in Ibis 58 (2) 340:342 (April 1916) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.1916.tb07939.x/abstract

Handbook of Texas Online http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdr12

RSPB http://www.rspb.org.uk/

Wikipedia ‘John Gerrard Keulemans’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gerrard_Keulemans

Wikipedia ‘Lithography’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography