7 Modern Greek Studies

George I. Paganelis

Map of Greece and Cyprus.

Introduction

This chapter is intended to guide the librarian who has acquired selection responsibilities in Modern Greek studies (MGS) as an add-on to primary responsibilities in European studies, classics, or Middle Eastern studies. A background that includes some knowledge of Ancient Greek would be of service, but with the tools available to assist with collection development and translation, this is less of a prerequisite than in years past. My hope is that collection development in MGS will be an enjoyable endeavor, albeit challenging at times, and that you will develop an appreciation for the rich bibliographical history and landscape of the field.

Like other area studies disciplines, MGS is an umbrella term that encompasses broadly the fields of the social sciences and humanities. It can also include the pure and physical sciences for materials with a more socio-historical or cultural orientation—the history of science/medicine, for example—but generally excludes technical works. Territorially, MGS focuses principally on Greece and Cyprus, along with other countries where there is a significant diasporic population. The Hellenic diaspora spans the globe, but the most significant populations of Greeks outside Greece today can be found in the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Albania, Russia, and Britain, with smaller but noteworthy populations in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, and elsewhere. Historically, Turkey and Egypt had sizable Greek populations, but these numbers declined sharply during the 20th century due to forced population exchange with Greece, persecution in the case of Turkey, and emigration from Egypt. The principal languages of publications in MGS are Modern Greek and English; due to the Hellenic diaspora and the range of scholars working in the various fields in the discipline, however, publications can be found in most European languages, Turkish, Slavic languages, and others. Depending on subject area and context, the field can typically range chronologically from 1453, the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, to the present. The greatest emphasis and publishing output, however, deals with the period of pre-independence Greece from 1800 to the present.

The Academic Field

The field of MGS encompasses all the subject areas within the social sciences and humanities as well as interdisciplinary areas such as women’s and gender studies and diaspora studies. Within these fields there is a significant body of scholarship that includes an aspect of MGS in a comparative context, often in edited volumes and Festschriften.

Given its relatively small size, MGS can reasonably be termed a “boutique” discipline in academia, often not represented in its own department, but rather consisting of programs housed in or under the aegis of other departments such as history and classics. At research universities, MGS programs are frequently affiliated with interdisciplinary institutes and centers, while some institutions have their own MGS or broader Hellenic studies centers.

In North America the Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA), founded in 1968, is the foremost scholarly society devoted to the field. The MGSA has its own scholarly publication, the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, published by Johns Hopkins University Press and considered the leading journal in the field. The MGSA website maintains a comprehensive directory of MGS programs, faculty, and graduate students, along with additional information, giving an overall picture of the field. In North America there are 59 MGS programs across 25 US states and four Canadian provinces, including 13 new programs created since 2000. According to figures on the MGSA website, enrollments at institutions with MGS programs range from around a dozen per academic term to as many as 300. It is worth noting that, over the same timeframe, more than 10 endowed professorships/chairs in MGS and Hellenic studies have been created at some of these same institutions. For the reader’s reference, the counterpart to the MGSA in Europe is the European Society of Modern Greek Studies (Ευρωπαϊκή Εταιρεία Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών; ΕΕΝΣ). Note that this site offers translation into English and in other languages via Google Translate.

Publishing Landscape

The scholarly output of books in MGS from North American publishers has been steadily proliferating for more than 40 years. History, political science, language and literature, and Greek-American studies have been among the most prevalent subject areas, but changes in the social and political landscape of Greece, Cyprus, and Europe, including financial and refugee crises over the past 15 years, have resulted in publishing activity in subjects that previously received little attention.

University presses are among the key publishers of scholarly materials in MGS in North America. MGS-focused series from university presses and academic departments include Harvard’s Early Modern and Modern Greek Library and Cultural Politics, Socioaesthetics, Beginnings; and Princeton Modern Greek Studies. Other notable publishers include:

Among now-defunct North American publishers whose output is of particular importance and should be sought when building or enhancing collections in MGS, Pella Publishing and Aristide Caratzas should be considered essential. Scholarly works on Greek-American themes are sometimes treated in the presses above, though these are outnumbered by popular press titles and, increasingly, self-published works.

In Europe, there are numerous university presses outside Greece and Cyprus with significant publishing output in MGS, including:

Other notable scholarly European presses include:

In 2006, for the first time, book production in Greece topped 10,000 publications for the year, and numbers increased the following two years, though this trend began to reverse in 2009 as Greece experienced the brunt of its financial crisis (National Book Centre of Greece 2012, 3). Based on figures available through the VivlioNet (ΒιβλιοNet) database, a portal that acts as a de facto source of Greek books in print, overall book production has generally remained between 8,000 and 9,000 titles per year on a national level since about 2015; the number of publishers in Greece—popular and scholarly, literary, historical, political, and others—is more than 4,500.

While most universities in Greece have a press, some have imprints under particular divisions or departments or use private publishers. Here are some of the major university presses:

Likewise, here is a sampling of some of the key publishers in various subject areas to serve as a basis for collection development efforts of Greek imprints in MGS:

In the Republic of Cyprus, by contrast, according to recent issues of the Bulletin of Cypriot Bibliography (Δελτίο Κυπριακής Βιβλιογραφίας, available open access), the annual national publishing output has been steady, at just under 1,000 titles. The two university presses of note are the University Press of Cyprus (Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κύπρου) and the University of Nicosia Press (Εκδόσεις Πανεπιστημίου Λευκωσίας). Other notable publishers in Cyprus include:

As is the case in Greece and other countries, privately printed works that we would classify as self-published abound.

To an extent, the degree to which a librarian with responsibilities in MGS must actively keep up with the publishing landscape is determined by one’s acquisition budget and reliance on vendors via approval plans, etc. Beyond the role of vendors, the MGSA’s website, including the faculty directory and the MSGA-L email discussion list, is a useful resource for learning about new publications. Finally, book reviews that appear in many of the core journals and article databases cited further in this chapter are another helpful tool.

For titles in Greek, VivlioNet (ΒιβλιοNet) serves as an excellent gateway to surveying the book market, keeping up on new publications, and tracking award-winning authors and titles in literature; it offers a search interface for publications in Greece. For Cyprus, the periodical Bulletin of Cypriot Bibliography (Δελτίο Κυπριακής Βιβλιογραφίας), published by the Cyprus National Library and available open access but only in Greek, provides the best conspectus of publishing output in various languages on the island, with useful indexes.

Two important organizations in Greece provide further valuable information on the book market and the state of publishing in the country: Book Publishers’ Network (Σύνδεσμος Εκδοτών Βιβλίων; ΣΕΚΒ) and the Hellenic Federation of Publishers and Booksellers (Πανελλήνια Ομοσπονδία Εκδοτών Βιβλιοπωλών; ΠΟΕΒ).

Collection Development Resources

Several vendors in North America can supply books in MGS. Because MGS is still a predominantly print-oriented field, the vendors and resources below apply to acquisition of both primary- and secondary-source texts.

GOBI from EBSCO and ProQuest’s OASIS offer search interfaces for firm orders and for setting up profiles for approval plans and standing orders for current print books and eBooks, mostly in English with some coverage in other languages.

Specializing in publications from Russia, Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East, East View can provide materials on the Greek diaspora in these areas and a limited selection of Greek-language titles published in Greece. They offer book services for firm orders, approval plans, serial subscription services, and digitization services of library collections.

Greece in Print, a network of organizations that includes Cosmos Publishing, is a useful portal for firm orders of books in English and Greek, especially in the areas of history, diaspora, and literature.

Outside North America there are several vendors that can supply books from Greece and Cyprus in Greek and other languages. These include:

  • Casalini Libri, long an established Italian vendor for providing Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese books and non-print media, has been supplying Greek imprints since 2012. Casalini offers the ability to place firm orders, standing orders, subscriptions, and more. Greek imprints are also included in its core titles lists. Users should be aware of certain discrepancies with ALA-LC Romanization in bibliographic records from Casalini; see the ALA-LC Romanization Table for Transliterating Greek. Also note that their value-added service translates into higher prices than if titles were ordered directly from Greek sources.
  • Based in Munich, Wissenschaftliche Versandbuchhandlung Dr. Martin Berg, has been supplying books, journals, and series from Greece and Cyprus since 2003. They offer firm orders, approval plans, and a new title service, and also sell books from Italy.

The following specialty book vendors in Greece supply materials to North American academic libraries via standing orders. Note: one can usually expect to communicate with them in English.

  • Ekdoseis Kardamitsa (Εκδόσεις Καρδαμίτσα); interface in Greek only
  • Ekdoseis Papadēmas (Εκδόσεις Παπαδήμας); interface in Greek only
  • Eleutheroudakēs (Ελευθερουδάκης); interface in Greek only
  • Ianos (Ιανός); interface in Greek and English
  • Oionos has the most developed operation and specializes in supplying books to North American libraries. They offer approval plans of shelf-ready books for most major publishers in Greece, and periodical subscriptions and standing orders. Interface in English.

In Cyprus, Moufflon is an established bookseller and publisher whose store allows for firm orders for books, periodicals, newspapers, and other items published in Cyprus, or published outside the country and concerning Cyprus, but does not offer vendor record loads. Perizitito offers firm orders and approval plans of Greek books, books published in and about Cyprus, and books in English, and also operates an e-commerce site called TOTELiO.

In Turkey, Libra Books supplies books, journals, conference proceedings, dissertations, and audiovisual content produced in Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. They offer approval plans, standing orders, and firm orders for publications from official bodies, museums, research institutes, professional organizations, and more.

Publishers and booksellers in Greece have a far greater online presence today than previously, making it possible to find and order titles efficiently. Two better-known sites for ordering Greek books online are Prōtoporia (Πρωτοπορία) and Vivliopōleio Politeia (Βιβλιοπωλείο Πολιτεία). Note that titles that appear to be available may turn out to be out of print after an order has been placed, likely due to inventory not being updated in real time.

For out-of-print titles in English or in languages other than Greek, sites such as AbeBooks, BookFinder, Amazon, and eBay are familiar sources. There are now dozens of used and out-of-print Greek and Cypriot bookshops with an online presence and searchable inventories. These can be found by doing an online search for παλαιοβιβλιοπωλείο (“old [i.e., used] bookstore”) or παλιά βιβλία (“old books”; add Κύπρος [“Cyprus”] for sites in Cyprus).

Two major book fairs that occur annually in Greece are the Festival of the Book (Φεστιβάλ Βιβλίου) in Athens and the Thessalonikē International Book Fair (Διεθνής Έκθεση Βιβλίου Θεσσαλονίκης). European book fairs in which Greece has been represented in recent years include the Frankfurter Buchmesse in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, Italy; and the Festival du Livre de Nice in Nancy, France.

Several auction houses in Greece provide remote and in-person opportunities for retrospective collection development of books, journals, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and so on. These include:

Collection assessment in MGS can best be achieved through the powerful analytics tools available to libraries today. GreenGlass (OCLC) is one option for analyzing and making deselection and retention decisions for your print monograph and serial collections. Another powerful solution is WorldShare Collection Evaluation (OCLC), which allows you to compare “your library collections to those of another library, a peer group or a benchmark library group to analyze the strength of your discipline-specific resources and to support decisions about what to buy, license or borrow” (OCLC, n.d.).

Disciplinary Resources

Journals

The core peer-reviewed journals for the fields encompassed by MGS in English are as follows:

  • Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies: Semi-annual which includes all aspects of Byzantine and Modern Greek scholarship, whether historical, literary or social-anthropological. Includes book reviews. Subscription resource.
  • Cyprus Review: Semi-annual which focuses on “Cypriot political, social and economic issues, encouraging research and reflection on social and political sciences pertinent to Cyprus.” Principal journal in English on Cyprus and Cypriot studies. Includes book reviews. Open access.
  • Ergon: Greek/American Arts and Letters: Continuously updated online journal that promotes the arts, letters, and scholarship of Greek America via articles, editorials, essays, fiction, blog posts, etc. Includes reviews of various types (e.g., books, films, events). Open access.
  • Filmicon: Journal of Greek Film Studies: Annual, bilingual (English and Greek) online journal focused largely on Greek film, television, and audiovisual culture in international and transnational contexts. Open access.
  • Journal of Greek Media and Culture: Semi-annual that explores “a wide range of manifestations of media and culture in and about Greece.” Includes occasional book and event reviews. Subscription resource.
  • Journal of Modern Greek Studies (JMGS): Semi-annual covering Greek social, cultural, and political affairs from the late Byzantine Empire to the present. Includes book reviews. Official journal of the Modern Greek Studies Association and the leading journal in the field in English. Subscription resource.
  • Journal of Modern Hellenism (JMH): Annual thematic issues cover history, language, institutions, and culture of the Greek people and the Greek diaspora from the late Byzantine period to the present. Includes book reviews. Open access.
  • Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora: Annual published by Pella; no longer produced. Focused on history, literature, politics, and culture in the Hellenic diaspora worldwide; still is an excellent source of information on Greek America. Issues include book reviews. Utility of the digitized version of v.1 (1974)-v.35 (2009) is greatly compromised by a search interface that does not return results in context, but only points to the issue wherein the search terms are contained. Open access.
  • Modern Greek Studies Yearbook (print only): Annual published by the former Modern Greek Studies Program at the University of Minnesota on historical, literary, and cultural aspects of Modern Greece and earlier periods of Greek history that relate to the modern era; ceased publication in 2017. Emphasis on Orthodoxy and Slavic-Greek relations. Includes review articles and book reviews.
  • Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Quarterly which covers political science, international relations, and related areas, with comparative research on countries within the Southeast European and Black Sea regions. Includes book reviews. Subscription resource.
  • South European Society and Politics: Quarterly focusing on “social science research and contemporary history on South European domestic politics and society.” Subscription resource.

Primary Source Databases

  • ANEMI: Digital Library of Modern Greek Studies: Portal of digitized reference collections, books, journals, and archives from the holdings of the University of Crete. Interface in Greek and English. Open access.
  • Digital Library of the Hellenic Parliamentary Library (Ψηφιακή Βιβλιοθήκη της Βιβλιοθήκης της Βουλής): Large collection of digitized newspapers, constitutions, acts of parliament, and archives held by the Hellenic Parliament from the 18th century to the present. Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • Digital Platform of the National Library of Cyprus (Ψηφιακή Πλατφόρμα της Κυπριακής Βιβλιοθήκης): Digitized government documents, municipal archives, periodicals, and more from the National Library of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Βιβλιοθήκη). Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • eContent Digital Content and Services (eContent Ψηφιακό Περιεχόμενο & Υπηρεσίες): Digital content portal of the National Documentation and Electronic Content Center (Εθνικό Κέντρο Τεκμηρίωσης και Ηλεκτρονικού Περιεχομένου; ΕΚΤ), including digitized books, periodicals, dissertations, etc. Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • Greek Literary and Historical Archive Digitized Collections (Ελληνικό Λογοτεχνικό και Ιστορικό Αρχείο Ψηφιοποιημένες Συλλογές; ΕΛΙΑ): Extensive digitized content of postcards, ephemera, photographs, journal, newspapers, and more. Interface in Greek, with English version “coming soon.” Open access.
  • Greek Radio and Television Archive (Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση Αρχείο; ΕΡΤ): Digital archive of radio, television, newsreels, and other media outlets. Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • Kosmopolis Digital Collection (Κοσμόπολις Ψηφιακή Συλλογή): Digitized versions of 14 Greek literary periodicals covering the years 1834-1930; hosted by the University of Patras. Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • Lēkythos (Λήκυθος): Home of the digital collections and the Institutional Repository of the University of Cyprus. Interface in Greek and English. Open access.
  • National Library of Greece Digital Collections Platform (Πλατφόρμα Ψηφιακών Συλλογών – Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη της Ελλάδος): Growing collection of holdings digitized by the National Library of Greece (Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη), including manuscripts, rare books, national statistics, maps, and periodicals. Interface in Greek and English. Open access.
  • National Library of Greece Digital Library of Newspapers and Periodical Press (Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη της Ελλαδος Ψηφιακή Βιβλιοθήκη Εφημερίδων και Περιοδικού Τύπου): Digitized versions of seven Greek newspapers of the 19th-20th centuries; hosted by the National Library of Greece. Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • OpenArchives.gr: Federated search interface to digital collections from nearly 80 institutions in Greece and Cyprus. Collections include newspaper and journal articles, conference papers, theses/dissertations, books, and more. Interface in Greek and English. Open access.
  • Pleias Digital Collection (Πλειάς Ψηφιακή Συλλογή): Collection of almost 40 digitized historic Greek literary periodicals of the 19th century through about 1930 published in Greece, Istanbul, Smyrna, etc. Interface in Greek only. Open access.
  • Psifiothiki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) Digital Collections: Extensive collection of AUTh’s digitized archives, articles, and more. Interface in multiple languages. Open access.
  • SearchCulture.gr: “The Greek Aggregator for Cultural Heritage Content.” Interface in Greek and English. Open access.

Secondary Source Databases

Unlike other interdisciplinary area studies fields, MGS does not have a single article or secondary-source database that can retrieve sufficient results for every subject area. The list below represents the most relevant article databases in the social sciences and humanities that will be helpful for MGS research.

  • Academic Search Ultimate: Multi-disciplinary database providing access to full-text articles from popular magazines and scholarly journals in most areas of academic study. Available in four tiers (Elite, Premier, Complete, and Ultimate) with progressively more full-text content. Subscription resource.
  • America: History and Life: Covers the history of the US and Canada from prehistory to the present. Useful for research on Greeks in the US and Canada. Subscription resource.
  • American Bibliography of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ABSEEES): Comprehensive indexing and abstracting for a range of disciplines covering East-Central Europe, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the former Soviet republics. Coverage of Greece is usually in the context of other Balkan countries. Subscription resource.
  • Anthropology Plus: Comprehensive anthropology index which combines the holdings of the Anthropological Index and Anthropological Literature databases, covering anthropological literature from the 19th century to the present. Subscription resource.
  • Atla Religion Database (Atla RDB): Compiled by the American Theological Library Association; covers Biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religious perspectives on social issues. Subscription resource.
  • EconLit: Index for economic literature, containing over 1.1 million records relevant to virtually all areas of economics. Subscription resource.
  • Historical Abstracts: Index of over 2,300 journals relevant to world history excluding the US and Canada; includes key historical journals from virtually every major country. Subscription resource.
  • Index Islamicus: Index of articles, books, and reviews covering the main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, as well as Muslims living elsewhere, and their history, beliefs, societies, cultures, languages, and literatures. Useful for coverage of topics including Greece and the Balkans during the Ottoman period and Greeks in the Middle East. Subscription resource.
  • JSTOR: Online archive of core scholarly journals in most subject areas, a growing collection of eBooks, and some primary-source collections in the social sciences and humanities. Does not provide access to current issues of its journals; the embargo period typically varies from one to five years. Subscription resource.
  • Literature Criticism: Collection of literary criticism resources from Classical antiquity to the present, including drama, short story, and children’s literature. Subscription resource.
  • MLA (Modern Language Association) International Bibliography: Index of journal articles, books, and dissertations in literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, and dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing. Subscription resource.
  • National Archive of PhD Theses (Εθνικό Αρχείο Διδακτορικών Διατριβών): Database containing more than 46,000 dissertations from Greece; includes limited availability to full-text dissertations since 1985. Downloads require user registration. Interface in Greek and English. Open access.
  • Project MUSE: Full-text content of over 700 journals in the social sciences and humanities and over 70,000 eBooks, all without embargo. Home platform for the Journal of Modern Greek Studies online. Subscription resource.
  • ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: Largest repository of full-text dissertations and theses from institutions worldwide. Subscription resource.
  • Sociological Abstracts: Abstracts and indexes of the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Subscription resource.

News Sources and Media Outlets

Today Greece has about a dozen national daily newspapers, along with a host of Sunday, weekly, specialty, and local papers. The main daily papers of record are Hē Kathēmerinē (Η Καθημερινή), with an English version Ekathemerini; Eleutheros Typos (Ελεύθερος Τύπος); Hestia (Εστία); and Ta Nea (Τα Νέα). Notably, Greece’s official newspaper of the Communist Party, Rizospastēs (Ριζοσπάστης), has been published daily since 1916. In the US, the principal Greek-American newspaper is Ethnikos Kēryx (Εθνικός Κήρυξ). The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) provides access to Greek and Greek-American newspapers for members and non-members.

Some online portals for keeping up with news in and of interest to Greece include CNN Greece, News247, In, and Newsit. English-language news focusing on Greece is generally available from many news aggregators, such as Factiva, Global Newsstream, and Nexis Uni. News in Greek, however, is somewhat harder to come by in aggregators, although Global Newsstream, Nexis Uni, and PressReader have a few titles.

Likewise, Greece has a dozen public and private national television channels, complemented by dozens of private and speciality subscription channels and local channels around the country. The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση; ΕΡΤ) operates several separate public channels (ΕΡΤ1-ΕΡΤ3 and ΕΡΤ World) and recently launched Ertflix, a streaming platform featuring series, movies, news, and more. Parliament TV (Βουλή Τηλεόραση) is akin to C-SPAN and broadcasts government proceedings and public affairs programming. Several other major channels include:

Comprehensive lists of print media, television stations, radio stations, and other media outlets in Greece can be found linked in the Wikipedia article Mass media in Greece.

Catalogs, Bibliographies, Archives

There is a great number and variety of bibliographical tools, catalogs, and archives available to assist you in collection development and other work associated with MGS.

National and Other Major Libraries and Their Catalogs

Bibliographies

  • Constantinidis, Stratos E., ed. 2000. Greece in Modern Times: an Annotated Bibliography of Works Published in English in Twenty-Two Academic Disciplines during the Twentieth Century. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. Highly useful bibliography covering a range of disciplines for scholarship in English.
  • Greek Bibliography of the 19th Century (Ελληνική βιβλιογραφία του 19ου αιώνα): Electronic catalog; greatly enhances access to all the most important sources and concomitant additions, supplements, and corrections of 19th-century Greek bibliography. Interface in multiple languages.
  • Kitromilides, Paschalis., and Marios L. Evriviades, comps. 1995. Cyprus. Rev. ed. Oxford; Santa Barbara: Clio Press. Annotated entries on the history, geography, economy, and politics of Cyprus, as well as its people, culture, customs, religion, etc.
  • Legrand, Emile, et Hubert Octave Pernot. Bibliographie hellénique, ou, Description raisonnée des ouvrages publiés en grec par des Grecs aux XVe et XVIe siècles. Mansfield Centre, Conn: Maurizio Martino, 1997. Reprint edition of the foundational bibliographical work on the post-Byzantine/Early Modern Greek era. Covers the period 1476-1600. Entries contain descriptive annotations, extracts from works, and locations. Later works by Legrand and his protégés span the 17th and 18th centuries, while later bibliographers have issued additions, corrections, and supplements to Legrand’s original works.
  • Modern Greek Society: a Social Science Newsletter. 1973-2000. New Hampton, N.Y: Modern Greek Association of the United States and Canada. Periodical publication that featured thematic essays and lists of publications, films, etc., within various fields of the social sciences pertaining to Modern Greece.
  • Philippides, Dia Mary L. 1990. Census of Modern Greek Literature: Check-List of English-Language Sources Useful in the Study of Modern Greek Literature (1824-1987). New Haven: Modern Greek Studies Association. Informative conspectus of English-language sources in the field of Modern Greek literature. An updated, searchable online edition covering Greek authors from the 19th-21st centuries is now available as the Census of Modern Greek Literature (Online).
  • Veremēs, Thanos, and Markos Dragoumēs, comp. 1998. Greece. Rev. ed. Oxford; Santa Barbara: Clio Press, 1998. Annotated entries on the history, geography, economy, and politics of Greece, as well as its people, culture, customs, religion, etc.
  • Papadopoulos, Thōmas I. Hellēnikē vivliographia: 1466 ci.-1800. Athēnai: Grapheion Dēmosieumatōn tēs Akadēmias Athēnōn, 1984– [Παπαδόπουλος, θωμάς Ι. Ελληνική βιβλιογραφία: 1466 ci.-1800. Αθήναι: Γραφείον Δημοσιευμάτων της Ακαδημίας Αθηνών, 1984–]. Multi-volume contribution to early Greek bibliography, adding a substantial number of new publications and supplementary information based on extensive research.
  • Phousaras, G. I. Vivliographia tōn Hellēnikōn vivliographiōn, 1791-1947. Athēna: Hestias, 1961 [Φουσαράς, Γ. Ι. Βιβλιογραφία των Ελληνικών βιβλιογραφιών, 1791-1947. Αθήνα: Εστίας, 1961]. An extremely valuable resource despite its age, this bibliography of bibliographies is the only one of its kind for Greece.

Archives

  • Contemporary Social History Archives (Αρχεία Σύγχρονης Κοινωνικής Ιστορίας; ΑΣΚΙ): “Leading Greek archival institution for the history of political and social movements, with a particular emphasis on the history of the Greek Left.” Interface in Greek and English.
  • General State Archives of Greece (Γενικά Αρχεία του Κράτους; ΓΑΚ): Maintains a national index of Greek archives and has overseen the creation of digital collections at the central and regional/local archives. English interface available but not directly linked to the Greek site.
  • Greek Literary and Historical Archive (Ελληνικό Λογοτεχνικό και Ιστορικό Αρχείο; ΕΛΙΑ): Operates as a department of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (MIET). Holds extensive literary, historical, and cultural archives, and has a significant digital presence. Interface in Greek and English.

Reference Tools

  • Claybaugh, Zachariah H. 2019. A Research Guide to Southeastern Europe: Print and Electronic Sources. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Recent guide to the libraries, archives, journals, databases, and dissertations and theses of all countries in Southeastern Europe.
  • Europa World Plus: Online edition of The Europa World Year Book. Covers political, economic, and historical information, including statistics, for over 250 countries and territories. Subscription resource.
  • Holton, David, Peter Mackridge, and Irene Philippaki-Warburton. 2004. Greek: an Essential Grammar of the Modern Language. London: Routledge. Modern grammar focusing on the most important aspects of the language.
  • Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2015. Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press. Recent general introduction to the history of Modern Greece up through the financial crisis.
  • Keridis, Dimitris. 2022. Historical Dictionary of Modern Greece. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press. Dictionary of the people, places, events, movements, etc. important in the modern history of Greece.
  • Merry, Bruce. 2004. Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Literature. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Useful, if somewhat uneven, one-volume survey spanning the Byzantine period to the present.
  • Mirbagheri, Farid. 2022. Historical Dictionary of Cyprus. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press. Dictionary of the people, places, events, movements, etc. important in the modern history of Cyprus.
  • Speake, Graham. 2000. Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. Two-volume work covering the major people, places, ideas, and themes of Hellenism over the centuries.
  • Chatzēphōtēs, Iōannēs M. Megalē enkyklopaideia tēs Neoellēnikēs logotechnias: apo ton 10on aiōna M. Ch. mechri sēmera. 1968-[1972?]. Athēnai: Ekdotikos Oikos Ch. Patsē. [Χατζηφώτης, Ιωάννης Μ. Μεγάλη εγκυκλοπαίδεια της Νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας: απο τον 10ον αιώνα Μ. Χ. μέχρι σήμερα. 1968-[1972?]. Αθήναι: Εκδοτικός Οίκος Χ. Πάτση.] Comprehensive 12-volume work spanning Modern Greek literature from the 10th century to the late 1960s.

Distinctive Print Collections

The number of research collections across a range of subjects in MGS can be counted on two hands. The two largest collections in the US are Harvard University Library’s Modern Greek Collections, which has been growing for over two centuries (Layton 1971, 221), and the Modern Greek Collection at Princeton University, which began collecting in Hellenic studies (and MGS specifically) in earnest after 1979 (Lindau 2008, 6). The latter has grown dramatically to become arguably the strongest collection in the country, with the largest and most active fellowship program in Hellenic studies. Gondicas (1997) offers additional background on the development of Princeton’s MGS collections and program.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, the Modern Greek Collections in the Library of Congress (LC) consist mainly of books and journals published since 1945 in all core disciplines of the social sciences and humanities, with other formats including maps, photographs, and sound recordings. The Archbishop Iakovos Library and Learning Resource Center at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, Massachusetts, holds a sizable collection on Orthodox theology, with secondary strengths in classics, Byzantine history, and MGS, including collections on Greek America (Cotsonis 2000). The holdings of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s Department of Archives & Resource Center in New York City documents not only the history of the Archdiocese and Greek Orthodoxy in America, but also various aspects of the Greek experience in the US. The New York Public Library has significant holdings in MGS. And the Historical Society of Pennsylvania owns the holdings of the former Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, including materials related to Greek America.

In the Midwest, the University of Cincinnati’s John Miller Burnam Classics Library holds significant materials in MGS, with particular strengths in history, geography, linguistics, Philhellenism, and historic journals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. See this Description of Burnam’s MGS Collection and the more recent description and analysis by Riley (2008). Also in Ohio, the Ohio State University, home to one of the most active MGS programs in the country, is particularly strong in Modern Greek language and literature, with additional strengths in history and Cypriot studies, including Northern Cyprus. The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, is home to the Basil Laourdas Modern Greek Collection, numbering around 20,000 volumes. This non-circulating collection is particularly strong in Modern Greek literature and literary criticism. In addition, the university’s Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA) holds numerous significant manuscript collections and periodicals relevant to Greek America.

West of the Mississippi, the Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection at California State University, Sacramento, is the premier Hellenic collection of its kind, with holdings in excess of 83,000 volumes spanning the whole arc of Hellenism, but with particular strengths in Byzantine through Modern Greek studies, including perhaps the finest collection on Greek America in the country. For the past decade, Sacramento State has hosted more than two dozen visiting scholars in Hellenic studies through its Hellenic Research Fellowship Program. See Paganelis (2008) for an in-depth profile of the collection.

Keeping up with new publications and the activities of scholars in the field can be done through a variety of means, including the MGSA-L email discussion list, social media, book reviews, VivlioNet (ΒιβλιοNet), and other collection development tools referenced elsewhere in this chapter.

Professional Development and Networks

The community of librarians in North America who work substantively with MGS materials is a small one. The MGSA Library Consortium (noted on the MGSA’s standing committee webpage), which meets at the MGSA Biennial Symposium, is the principal body for librarians who wish to engage with colleagues and a scholarly community beyond email, etc. The Consortium of Hellenic Studies Librarians (CoHSL), an e-mail discussion list maintained by Harvard, serves as an informal network for librarians involved in MGS and Hellenic studies more broadly. The European Studies Section (ESS) of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) serves the needs of librarians involved in European studies and the countries of Europe. Of related interest, librarians with responsibilities in MGS may also consider joining the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA), whose publication MELA Notes and blog MELA Notepad are great venues for sharing information.

The reader should also be aware of the Hellenic Academic Libraries Link (HEAL-Link), a consortium of Greek universities and research centers that engages in joint subscriptions to electronic databases and collaborates in other ways.

Key Takeaways

  • For useful historical background on the state of MGS in North America in the fairly recent past, see the presentations and reports from the conference Strengthening Modern Greek Collections: Building US-Greek Library Partnerships, organized by the Library of Congress in 1999.
  • Make the effort to learn some basic Modern Greek and the ALA-LC Romanization Table for Transliterating Greek so that you can do searches in library catalogs.
  • Set up Greek input on your keyboard so that you can search Greek library catalogs and Web sites and obtain easy translations of titles, etc.
  • Realize that the tools for reference work and collection development in MGS are better than ever, even if you don’t read Modern Greek.
  • Books in North America are costly, but shipping is cheap; books in Greece and Cyprus are cheap, but shipping is costly.
  • There are still many types of publications in Greece and Cyprus that vendors do not supply. As such, there is still tremendous value in being able to acquire library materials on the ground in these countries as part of a well-rounded collection development policy.
  • In some instances, vendors that do not have a particular specialty in MGS will simply act as middlemen with price mark-ups when procuring orders from Greece and Cyprus. It is better to get materials directly from Greece and Cyprus when possible.

References

Cotsonis, Rev. Joachim (John). 2000. “The Archbishop Iakovos Library and Learning Resource Center.” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 45, no. 1/4: 307-342.

Gondicas, Dimitri. 1997. “Modern Greek Literature at Princeton: Building a Program and a Collection.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 58, no. 3 (1997): 343-51. Accessed November 30, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.58.3.0343.

Layton, Evro. 1971. “The Modern Greek Collection in the Harvard College Library.” Harvard Library Bulletin 19, no. 3: 221-243. Accessed November 30, 2021. https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334805$7i.

Lindau, Rebecka. 2008. “The Modern Greek Collections at Princeton University.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26, no. 1: 1-17. Accessed November 30, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.0.0007.

National Book Centre of Greece. 2012. “Greek Books: A Time of Turbulence.” The Book Market in Greece October: 3. Accessed November 30, 2021. http://www.ekebi.gr/frontoffice/portal.asp?cpage=NODE&cnode=308&clang=1.

OCLC. n.d. “WorldShare Collection Evaluation: Drive Your Collection Decisions through Cooperative Intelligence.” Accessed December 1, 2023. https://www.oclc.org/en/collection-evaluation.html.

Paganelis, George I. 2008. “The Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection at California State University, Sacramento: A Beacon of Hellenism in the Western United States.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26, no. 1: 19-27. Accessed November 30, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.0.0011.

Riley, Jacquelene W. 2008. “Research Opportunities in the Modern Greek Collection in the Classics Library at the University of Cincinnati.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26, no. 1: 29-62. Accessed November 30, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.0.0014.

Link List

(All accessed December 2023)

 

About the Author

Born in Athens, Greece, and raised in San José, CA, George I. Paganelis received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Davis, a master’s degree in classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 2003 he has served as Curator of the Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection in the university library at California State University, Sacramento.

 

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Handbook for European Studies Librarians Copyright © 2024 by George I. Paganelis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.24926/9781946135971.007