Welcome to the Colby-Bates German Virtual Library –                      For those interested
better known as VILLY – a collaborative project between                  in using VILLY for
the German Programs at Bates and Colby Colleges. This                    their class, please
project hopes to serve as a resource with                                               contact Arne Koch.
user-friendly access to authentic texts for the learning
and teaching of German at the beginning and intermediate levels. Designed as a practical tool to address the specific challenges involved in linking early literacy tasks to achieving advanced levels of communicative abilities within the German curricula in liberal arts settings, we have selected, sequenced, and prepared a wide range of narrative genres for communicative classroom settings based on textbooks used in our curricula and according to topical and grammatical key words.

Despite the project’s program-specificity, The Colby-Bates German Virtual Library will allow faculty in general to more effectively integrate reading into the beginning and intermediate German curriculum as a means to increase students’ communicative and linguistic abilities via the most often underused skill in early foreign language instruction. For that purpose, each text in the database has been prepared in simple Word format to allow further preparation and didacticization by individual faculty. While a text, for example, from the magazine Der Spiegel dealing with the complex and ever-changing use of Sie vs. Du among youths in Germany may be sufficiently glossed in this database for a class in the second semester at one college, it may require additional (or fewer) comments at another. Each user will be able to download and modify each text for individual one-time use in their classroom. So, if an instructor finds that a post has too many footnote – simply delete some; if there are not enough – add some to your copy. To allow for better identification of a text’s applicability, each text has been marked with topical and grammatical key words and its place within the course of our textbooks which will allow users easier access to additional or different texts.

Initially funded by a CBB/Mellon Foundation Collaborative Faculty Enhancement Grant under the direction of Professors Craig Decker (Bates) and Arne Koch (Colby) in 2010-2011, the Colby-Bates German VILLY is a student-faculty collaboration that plans to add texts continually. Please check back regularly as we expand and update our collection. The creators of the Colby-Bates German VILLY cannot guarantee the accuracy of the texts prepared for this database nor of the footnotes prepared for each text. Each individual user is responsible for checking for possible mistakes that slipped in during the preparation of this database.

Disclaimer: Texts from this database are for classroom use only and are ultimately prepared by individual instructors. While texts in this database fall in one or several of  the limitations to copyright categories, such as the TEACH Act, Fair Use, and/or Public Domain, instructors should include the following with files that may contain material copied via fair use: The following contains copyrighted material that has been copied under fair use provisions. Any further copying or use may not qualify as fair use and may be a violation of copyright law resulting in criminal or civil penalties.

Information about the structure of this database and the use of its search function can be found on the ‘Start a Search’ page.

Project Administration

Database Directors
Craig Decker, Bates College

Arne Koch, Colby College
[email protected]

Database Developer and Administrator
Jason Parkhill, Colby College

Student Research Assistants
Jeffrey Berry, Bates College ’12
Kedar Kurpad, Bates College ’13
Katherine MacNamee, Colby College ‘14
Katharine McConnell, Colby College ‘13
Adrian Morales, Bates College ’11
Matthew Newman, Colby College ‘14
Peter Thompson, Colby College ‘11
Christine Wamsley, Colby College ’15
James Violette, Colby College ‘11