Data sources

Currently, the search function of avldigital.de allows you to search within the following sources:

The Specialised Catalogue for Comparative Literature of the Frankfurt University Library comprises the collection of the former Special Subject Collection Comparative Literature, the new acquisitions of the SIS Comparative Literature as well as numerous other titles relevant to Comparative Literature. All publications can be loaned from the Frankfurt University Library or are available for interlibrary loan.

As a publication service for the Comparative Literature community, CompaRe offers scholars a platform re-publish their work in open access. Further information can be found under Open access on CompaRe in the Publishing module.

The database Online Contents Komparatistik contains tables of contents of more than 200 journals. It currently records more than 140,000 articles and reviews from 1993 to at least 2014.

The SIS Comparative Literature provides two e-book packages to a specific group of users: One package comprises 50 e-books, published between 2010 and 2018, from the academic publishing house transcript independent academic publishing, the other the series Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature (RIPL). Information on the e-books and access modalities can be found on the SIS licenses page.

"BASE is one of the world's most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. BASE provides more than 120 million documents from more than 6,000 sources. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library".

avldigital.de will provide a selection of titles relevant to Comparative Literature that can be found via BASE.

The platform OAPEN (Online library and publication platform) aggregates open access publications from European publishing houses and university presses. The focus is mostly on the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Integrating a selection of titles availble on OAPEN that accords to the "broad profile" of avldigital.de allows for making thousands of scholarly open access publications accessible via the portal. Thus, publications that were issued by publishing houses particularly engaged in the open access transformation, as well as titles transformed to open access due to initiatives such as Knowledge Unlatched, become a part of avldigital.de's Finding literature ressources.

transcript Independent Academic Publishing is one of the leading publishing houses for the Humanities in the German speaking world. For several years now, transcript has been strongly committed to the Open Access transformation and offers on its online platform approximately 400 titles that are freely accessible and also available via various aggregators such as BASE, OPAEN or DOAB.

According to the "broad profile" for avldigital.de, open access publications by transcript relevant to Comparative Literature are integrated into the platform's Finding literature index. Thus, transcript's open access portfolio is made visible to the community. Of course, numerous further transcript publications, in print or in closed access, are also available via the Finding literature index.

The German library system is organised in six library unions (Bibliotheksverbünde), whose virtual union catalogues contain all references from their member libraries. Recently, all six union catalogues are contributing to the Combined Consortial Library Index (Gemeinsamer Verbündeindex, GVI), aiming to facilitate inter-library loan.

Out of these millions of catalogue references, we select those relevant to comparatists for avldigital.de. The selection follows the "broad profile" for content and information available on avldigital.de.

In addition to the catalogue data, selecting from the GVI allows to integrate availability information from almost all scholarly libraries in Germany. Thus, users can determine if a title is available for loan at their local library, or if it needs to be ordered by inter-library loan.

The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage) has an extensive collection in the field of general and comparative linguistics and literature.

"General linguistics and literary studies as well as comparative linguistics, comparative literature and Indo-Germanic studies interact strongly with the individual philologies. This constellation, in conjunction with the traditional cultivation of most of the philologies in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (SBB-PK), results in a high demand for literature, which must be met by acquiring a very broad selection of literature. Even more so than in Germany, comparative literature and general linguistics in the Anglo-American world are disciplines with extensive publication activity. Added to this is the interdisciplinary character of the subjects, which are relevant not only for research in the individual philologies, but also and especially in the field of media, film and theatre studies. General and Comparative Linguistics and Literature is therefore a focal point of the SBB-PK collection. There is no focus on particular topics, nor are there any limitations in terms of content."

According to the "broad profile" for avldigital.de, content relevant to Comparative Literature is selected for the Finding literature catalogue.

The Freie Universität Berlin's Philologische Bibliothek (Philological Library) is one of the largest library departments for the philologies in Germany. Due not only to the Peter Szondi Institute and the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School, its collections comprise numerous works relevant to Comparative Literature.

According to the "broad profile" for avldigital.de, the references to these are selected from the Philologische Bibliothek's catalogue and integrated into the Finding literature module's catalogue.

TextGrid Repository,"a digital preservation archive for human sciences research, offers an extensive searchable and adaptable corpus of XML/TEI encoded texts, pictures and databases. Amongst the continuously growing corpus is the Digital Library of TextGrid, which consists of works of more than 600 authors of German fiction (prose, verse and drama), as well as nonfiction from the beginning of the printing press to the early 20th century. The files are saved in different output formats (XML, ePub, PDF), published and made searchable. Different tools e.g. viewing or quantitative text-analysis tools can be used for visualization or to further research the text."

All content from the TextGrid Repository is indexed on avldigital.de. It is available via the "Research data" category in the search results. Individual records offer direct access to the respective contents of the TextGrid Repository.

The Digi20 project makes available online digital copies of research literature from the field of the humanities and social sciences that is not in the public domain, with a focus on monographic works. The titles come from programme segments of the publishing houses Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Wilhelm Fink / Ferdinand Schöningh and Otto Sagner. They are supplemented "up to a defined ‘Moving Wall’ of three to five years to the current year of publication".

On avldigital.de, all 5.250 titles (by April 2020) have been added to the "Finding literature" module's catalogue. Your hits from Digi20 can be opened directly via the "Access" tab.

The Datenbank-Infosystem (Database-Infosystem, DBIS) comprises more than 12,000 scientific databases. In DBIS, these databases can be searched by subject. A display of access modalities (free access, access subject to license, access via a national or alliance license, etc.) is possible.

For avldigital.de a selection of relevant databases was made, which can be found via the Finding literature module.

The Index of Researchers on avldigital.de is open to all researchers in literature or cultural studies and other disciplines who understand their work as comparative. Its purpose is to make one's own research activities visible to colleagues worldwide and to promote community building in Comparative Literature.

Klick on Registration to sign up for the Index of Researchers.

The Networking module on avldigital.de serves as a communication platform for Comparative Literature. The module contains daily news such as calls for papers, event announcements and vacancies and scholarship announcements as well as an index of academic institutions and research projects with a comparative focus and research-relevant web resources.

The contents of the module are submitted by users and curated by the editors of the SIS Comparative Literature.

The library of the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (ZfL) in Berlin is a specialised public library for interdisciplinary research in literature and culture. The library's main areas of focus include European literatures and cultural studies; literary theory and the history of literary studies; philosophy (especially aesthetics and its history). It also has materials on art history, media studies, religion and life sciences.