In areas of German language, literature and all aspects of culture, the collections of the Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) continue to grow and diversify in order to meet curricular and research needs of Brigham Young University. While preserving and expanding conventional holdings, the library is launching robustly into the realm of electronic media. The extent and depth of BYU German holdings not only support the teaching and research of students and faculty, now and into the future, but serve as regional resources as well. Keep in mind that the term “German” is meant here in a linguistic – not national – sense that includes Switzerland, Austria, and other related areas.
To explore the wealth of materials available for your research, you can go to the HBLL home page with its online book catalog. From that point you have a number of options: you can make keyword searches for books, journals, and other materials, or – to search for journal articles and online reference help – you can click on “Resources – By Subject” and choose between “German Language & Literature” for directed assistance on linguistic or literary searches or “German History & Politics” for other German cultural topics.
We hope you will be pleasantly surprised at the wealth of materials available: online and print-format primary texts; bibliographic indexes to find secondary literature (articles about authors and texts); journals and e-journals with those articles; dictionaries and guides; videos, sound recordings, and further scholarly materials and websites to help you enrich your findings. Remember that the online guides lead you not only to electronic media, but to reference help in book form as well, as found in the Humanities Reference section on Level Five of the library.
Finally, if you are frustrated, stymied, clueless, confused, völlig durcheinander… feel free to consult someone at the Humanities Reference desk on Level Five or to march directly to the office of the German Studies specialist, Richard Hacken, in room 5523. We HBLL librarians may not know all the answers, but we can help you seek out materials with relevant information that could lead first to finishing your task, then to passing your course, then to knowledge, and finally, some day, to wisdom and enlightenment. Or not.