Author: Ella Young

  • Learning Languages

    Interested in learning about a different language, or even learning some vocabulary and basic phrases? ibiblio hosts a few websites that are designed to teach languages to English speakers. Here is a collection of online dictionaries and informational sites that will help you learn about different languages and their culture and history!

    Learn Tamil

    Tamil is a language that is primarily spoken in India and Southern Asia and has over 66 million speakers worldwide (Britannica). It is the oldest language in the Dravidian language family and its earliest form has similarities to ancient Sanskrit.

    Learn Tamil is a resource suitable for students of all ages who want to learn Tamil. The guide starts with an introduction to the Thamil Alphabet and works through verbs, cases, numbers, negatives, and other vocabulary. There is also a resource page where you can find links to games, movies, and books that will help you learn Tamil.

    Catalan Dictionary

    Catalan is a Romance language that is native to Spain and regions near the Pyrenees Mountains (Wikipedia). It uses the Latin alphabet and has about 9.5 million speakers worldwide. Most Catalan speakers are bilingual and speak both Catalan and Spanish.

    This is an open-source English-Catalan dictionary with over 20,000 entries and a conjugator tool for conjugating verbs. Users can search for words in English and view results in Catalan, or vice versa.

    Koine Greek

    Koine Greek, also known as Biblical Greek, was the main form of Greek from about 300 BCE to about 600 CE (Wikipedia). It was often used in writing and it is most widely known for its use in the Christian New Testament and the Septuagint, which is the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

    The Little Greek website provides pronunciation guides, verb tables, and grammar and vocabulary resource recommendations. There are also examples of Koine Greek being used in biblical translations so users can see what the phrases would look like in English.

    More Resources

    ibiblio hosts sites that provide information about Gaelic languages, Old English, and Japanese, and more. You also can browse the Languages and Culture tag, which features over 15 unique languages and has materials for learning about cultures from all around the world!

  • North Carolina History

    ibiblio is maintained at UNC-Chapel Hill, and being based in NC, it has a large collection of resources on North Carolina history. I’ve compiled a list of historical websites related to events or periods in North Carolina that span over two centuries and range from east to west. Read about them below to find something to explore!

    Excavating Occaneechi Town

    Created by UNC Press, this site from 2003 was updated in 2021 and details the historic Occaneechi tribe and archaeologists’ excavation of their village. There is a ton of information about the artifacts that were found and an interesting background section on the history of the Occaneechi.

    Oxford Orphanage

    The Oxford Orphanage of Oxford, NC (now the Masonic Home for Children) was the first permanent orphanage in North Carolina. It was founded in the mid-nineteenth century and sought to educate and care for poor and orphaned children. You can read about the long history of the orphanage, view photos, and read staff interviews all on the site.

    Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    The first burial at the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery was in 1798, and it is still an important part of UNC’s campus today. Produced by UNC students, this page houses photos and resources related to the cemetery, a summary of its history, and a list of historical burials.

    Broken Arrow: Goldsboro, NC

    Check out this site to learn more about the two hydrogen bombs that were accidentally dropped on Faro, NC in 1961. Luckily the bombs did not detonate, but the full story is worth a read!

    WWI Detainees in Hot Springs, NC

    This archive features photos by Adolph Thierbach, a detainee of the Mountain Park Hotel where German civilians were being held between 1917 and 1918. He documented the time he spent in Hot Springs and later created a photobook to organize all of his pictures. Many photos, along with translated captions, are available thanks to the Madison County Library of North Carolina.

    Documenting the American South

    DocSouth is an initiative sponsored by UNC Libraries with materials on Southern history and culture that are great for students, teachers, researchers, and history enthusiasts. There are collections about the Civil War, colonial settlement, the evolution of Christianity in Southern Black culture, the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and so many more topics. You can browse more specific subjects with their index as well!

    Further Reading

    To learn more about North Carolina, you can browse the North Carolina Culture tag in ibiblio’s catalog.

  • The Public Domain

    What is the public domain?

    Works that are in the public domain are not subject to copyright laws and are accessible to anyone and everyone! They can be copied, quoted, adapted, or distributed with no permission needed. In 2022 in the United States (which uses a 95-year copyright term), copyrights on works such as books, movies, musical compositions, and sound recordings from 1926 have expired and are now available to the public. Classics like Winnie the Pooh, Bambi, and The Sun Also Rises are among the thousands of works that entered the public domain this year (Duke).

    In other parts of the world, works come into the public domain after the date of the author’s death plus a certain number of years. In the European Union, works by authors who died in 1951 will go into the public domain this year since they have a life-plus-70 year term. Similarly, Canada has a life-plus-50 year term (Duke).

    While some works come into the public domain after their copyright has expired, there are a few materials that are ineligible for copyright. In the United States, government works, grammatical rules, ideas, scientific and mathematical principles and theories, and compilations of facts (such as recipes or phone books) are all immediately in the public domain once published (University of California).

    Why is the public domain important?

    The Duke Center for the Study of Public Domain is a fantastic source for learning about what the public domain is, what it includes, and why it matters! Here are some of the ways the Center has listed for why the public domain is beneficial to everyone:

    Inspiration for new works: Film and theatrical adaptations of classic tales, fictional retellings, and sampled songs are all possible because of the public domain. Many famous and beloved Disney movies are the product of the public domain, as it is a source of creative inspiration for storytellers and artists everywhere.

    Access to education: Materials in the public domain are free to anyone and are easy to access both online and offline. Instead of having to buy texts or wait for them to become available at public libraries, texts in the public domain can be found on the internet in unlimited quantities. However, if you still want a hard copy of a certain work, it will most likely be a lot cheaper than something that is still restricted under copyright laws, since anyone can publish their own edition of the text. Using works without copyright restrictions reduces textbook costs for college students and makes materials easier to locate; it also allows for annotated editions and updated translations to be published.

    Public domain works on ibiblio

    ibiblio hosts many sites that house collections of works that are included in the public domain, including photos, books, clipart, magazines, and music!

    WPClipart: WPClipart offers over 90,000 images that are free to download and use, with categories such as animals, food, buildings, famous people, flags, and travel. There is also a small collection of children’s books.

    New Zealand Section 27: This is an interesting legal archive featuring reports and other documents published by the government of New Zealand throughout the 20th century. While it may be a niche source, it demonstrates the scope of the public domain and is a great way to learn about NZ history.

    Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks that includes classics, philosophy, science, general fiction, and more. Each text is proofread and available for download in a variety of digital formats. This is a great resource for students, teachers, and all literature enthusiasts!

    Musopen: Musopen is a classical music source that provides copyright-free sheet music, audio recordings, and musical education resources like textbooks and apps for students and teachers. Browse the catalog here! *alumni — no longer hosted by ibiblio*