Classics Library Collections
Overview
The Classics Library holds a collection of 60,000 volumes and 400 serials. Since the scope of the collection is wide, it includes materials which are of interest to reseachers in a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, art history, English, modern languages, and history. Undergraduates, especially those who are enrolled in classics courses, are encouraged to make use of the library.
The collection is especially strong in critical texts of and literature on the Greek and Latin authors, Greek and Latin grammar and lexicography, philology, epigraphy, papyrology, and facsimiles of manuscripts. A consistent policy of buying practically all publications of real value and of adding older material that still retains scholarly value has made the collection unusually well-rounded and useful in a practical way. Mediaeval Latin, patristics, and Byzantine and Modern Greek are also fairly well-represented. The Classical Library has a few early and rare editions of the classical authors; more such works may be found in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The collection is also strong in the particular research interests of different members of the classics faculty. For example, the book and pamphlet material is especially extensive for Aesop, Avianus, Epictetus, Homer, Jerome's Lives of the Hermit Saints, Apuleius, Suetonius, Terence, the Greek and Latin romances, the social and economic aspects of Greek and Roman civilization, and the ancient collections of proverbs and fables. Extensive collections of photocopies and collations of manuscripts have been built up for the following: Avianus, Asclepiodotus, Aesop, Jerome's Lives of the Hermit Saints, Plutarch's Quaestiones Graecae et Romanae, the Vitae Decem Oratorum, Suetonius' De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, and mediaeval treatises on technology from the eighth through the fourteenth century.
In addition to the materials housed in Rooms 419 and 407, many classics-related works of wider scope may be found in the general stacks in the Main Library.
Overview of the Classics Library Classification System
Books
- Search the Library Catalog
- New Titles at the Classics Library for the past month.
Books from Off Campus
- Search the I-Share Catalog Search for books at 65 other Illinois libraries. Requests are usually delivered in a week.
- Search OCLC WorldCat Search for books, journals and other library materials worldwide.
Journals
The Classics Library has an extensive collection of on-line and print serials. Electronic serials are accessible through the University Library's On-line Research ResourcesIndexes and Databases of Classical and Related Journals
- L'Annèe PhilologiqueIdentifies publications in all aspects of Greco-Roman antiquity. Coverage begins in 1949. The printed version is available in the Classics Reference Collection A.879 AN74.
- Gnomon Online On-line access to a portion of the Gnonom bibliographic CD-Rom, with a complete entries from 1997 and onwards. Indexes books and dissertations as well as journal articles. The CD-Rom is also available in the Classics Library.
- JSTOR Extensive digital archive of back issues of scholarly journals, including several in Classics.
- International Medieval Bibliography An interdisciplinary bibliographic database of the European Middle Ages, 1968-present.
- Periodical Archive Online, formerly Periodical Content Index. Full-text archive of humanities and social science periodicals. including several in classical philology and ancient history.
- TOCS-IN“Table of Contents of Interest to Classicists.” A searchable archive of the table of contents of journals in classics and related fields.
Specialized Indexes
- Ancient Greek Costume: An Annotated Bibliography PDF bibliogaphy of books and articles on ancient Greek costume.
- Bulletin Analytique d'Histoire Romaine (BAHR) Periodical index of articles on Roman history and archaeology.
- Diotima Bibliographies Searchable subject bibliographies on women & gender in antiquity.
- DRoits ANTiques(DRANT) A bibliographical produced by Center for the Documentation of Ancient Law (CDDA), focusing on ancient legal history and related areas.
On-line Databases of Classical Texts
- Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Database of digitized Greek literary texts from Homer to the Fall of Constantinople.
- Library of Latin Texts (CCLT) Database of Latin texts from Livy (240 B.C.) to the Renaissance.
- Patrologia Latina A digital version of Migne's complete Patrologia Latina containing the writings of the Latin Church Fathers.
- Vetus Latina A database of sources for pre-Vulgate Latin versions of the Bible.
- Acta Sanctorum A full text database of Latin Saint's Lives collected and published by the Sociéaté des Bollandistes.
Other Electronic Resources
- In Principio: Incipit Index of Latin Texts. Covering Latin literature from its origins to the Renaissance.
CD-ROMS
The Classics Library has a selection of CD-Roms available for on-site use including: The Archive of Celtic Latin Literature, Poetria Nova: A CD-Rom of Latin Medieval Poetry; The Electronic Monumenta Germaniae Historica; and the Gnomon bibliographische Datenbank
