When a French revolutionary pamphlet crops up in the news, we
take notice. Just days ago, the British Library announced that
it is partnering with Google to digitize 250,000 eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century books. Among the few titles they singled out
for mention is a signal work on women’s rights, Olympe de
Gouges’ Les droits de la femme of 1791. Happily, though not
surprisingly, this notable pamphlet can also be found here at
the Newberry in the French Revolution Collection (FRC) (Case FRC
19262) where it is among 25 works by Gouges that were cataloged
last spring. The digitization project is good news; in creating
our catalog records, we include links to free online versions
when they are available. Google Books comes up frequently and
will be a familiar resource to most users. Less well-known,
perhaps, but vital to our project are other electronic libraries
such as Gallica bibliothèque numérique (of the Biblioteque
nationale de France), the HathiTrust Digital Library, and the
Münchener DigitalisierungsZ