LibGuides: History: Home

Recommended databases for History

Bibliography of British and Irish History
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The Bibliography of British and Irish History searches academic resources (book, book chapters and journal articles) relating to the history of the British Isles and the British Empire and Commonwealth. It covers all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present. It contains almost 590,000 records.
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Humanities Source
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Humanities Source is a useful resource for anyone studying or researching the humanities. It provides full text access to over 1400 journals and citations to over 3.5 million articles including book reviews.
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Humanities Index
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An international abstracting and indexing tool for research in the humanities, Humanities Index indexes over 400 internationally respected humanities journals and weekly magazines published in the UK and other English speaking countries, as well as quality newspapers published in the UK. There are regular monthly updates.
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Arts & Humanities Citation Index
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Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature (over 1,600 journals) of the arts and humanities from 1975 to date. Useful for: Architecture, History, Languages, English Literature, Journalism and Speech and Language Therapy.
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Web of Science - Core Collection
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The Web of Science Core Collection comprises a set of databases covering scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examines proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions.
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Mass Observation Online
Mass Observation Online provides access to digitised versions of manuscripts and papers collected by the Mass Observation organisation in Britain during the period 1937 to the mid 1950s. It provides insights into daily lives and routines and provides access to primary sources of interest to those researching or studying historical, sociological or anthropological subjects.

See also Mass Observation Project.
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Archives Unbound
Archives Unbound contains subject based digital collections of historical documents covering a broad range of topics including: American history, British history, European history, Gender Studies, History of Health and Medicine, Journalism and Literature.
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JSTOR
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Content in JSTOR spans many disciplines, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. The Library subscribes to the following JSTOR journal collections: Arts & Sciences I,II,III,IV & VII, and Business II. JSTOR archives contains the full-text of non-current issues of journals digitised back to the first issue published to a date generally 3 to 5 years from the most current published issue. We also have access to current content for a few publications on the JSTOR platform. The Library also has access to the JSTOR digitised collection of 19th Century British Pamphlets.
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Mass Observation Project
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Access to the Mass Observation Project. Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions.

This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation in the 1980s, 1990s and between 2000 and 2009; and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. This is a useful resource for anyone researching British social history in the period between 1980 and 2009.

See also Mass Observation Online.
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AM Research Skills
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AM Research Skills is an electronic resource which helps researchers to gain skills in approaching primary sources such as newspapers, photographs, letters, objects, films and more. It contains almost 200 essays, videos, guides and case studies which describe how primary sources can be interrogated and used in academic research. This resource will be of interest to anyone who wishes to use primary sources in their research, assignments or essays.
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International Bibliography of Art (IBA)
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The definitive resource for scholarly literature on western art.##International Bibliography of Art is the successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA).##The database includes detailed abstracts for all new content, in-depth abstracts for scholarly articles, and authority files of controlled terms.
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Related databases for History

Sociological Abstracts
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This database abstracts and indexes the international literature of sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioural sciences. This includes coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers and working papers. Cited references are included for many journal articles.
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OmniFile Full Text Select
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A full-text database of journal articles and book reviews. It has multidisciplinary subject coverage, including arts, biology, business, current affairs, education, humanities, information science, law, literature and social sciences.
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U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991
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This resource provides access to declassified information about the US intelligence community in the Far East during the Cold War. It covers the period 1945-1991. Countries covered include: China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.
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U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995
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A collection of over 4,000 formerly classified U.S. government documents provides a comprehensive survey of the U.S. intelligence community’s activities in Europe between 1945 and 1995.
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Looking for more online primary sources? See our full online primary sources guide

UK Medical Heritage Library
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Access to 70,000 digitised medical publications from the nineteenth century. Useful for those researching history of science and medicine.
Open access/publicly accessible content. No login required.
European Views of the Americas 1493-1750
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This historical archive is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750, from 'European Americana: A Chronological Guide' to 'Works Printed In Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1750'.
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Oxford Reference
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Access to many of Oxford University Press's reference e-book titles on their digital platform.
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Sage Research Methods
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SAGE Research Methods contains more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences. It supports research at all levels and across all subjects by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. Also includes cases, datasets, data analysis and materials on data visualization, qualitative and quantitative research methods, statistical methods and statistical packages such as Python, R and SPSS among others.
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Routledge History of Feminism
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The Routledge History of Feminism resource covers the period of the long nineteenth century (1776-1928). It includes primary and secondary resources including books, chapters, journal articles and more. Themes of the resource are: politics and law; religion and belief; education; literature and writings; women at home; society and culture; empire and movements and ideologies.
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Biographical sources

American National Biography Online, ANB
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American National Biography Online contains biographies of more than 19,000 men and women - from all eras and walks of life - whose lives have shaped American history and culture.
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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
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The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture from Roman times to the twenty-first century. Entries are for those who died in or before the year 2012. It contains over 60,300 biographies and over 11,400 portraits.
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Dictionary of Irish Biography
A collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy, this resource contains over 9000 biographical articles which describe and assess the careers of Irish subjects in a variety of fields, including politics, law, religion, literature, journalism, architecture, painting, music, the stage, science, medicine, engineering, entertainment and sport. It is updated twice a year.
Open access/publicly accessible content. No login required.
Who's Who and Who Was Who
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'Who's Who' contains autobiographical listings for over 35,000 people from around the globe who have an impact on British life, including senior politicians, judges, civil servants, and notable figures from the arts, academia, and other areas. Each biographee provides the details for their entry, and many include contact details. 'Who Was Who' goes back to 1897 and includes the entries of over 94,000 people, now deceased, who were included in previous editions of Who's Who.
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Dictionary of Welsh Biography
Over 5000 biographies of individuals who have made a significant contribution to life in Wales, or more generally.

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Sarah Kevill

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Subjects: Centre for Lifelong Learning, Counselling, Diplomacy and International Security, Education, English & Creative Writing, Gender Studies, Genealogical, Palaeographic & Heraldic Studies, History, Humanities & Social Sciences, Journalism, Media and Communication, Languages, Physical Activity for Health, Psychological Sciences & Health, Psychology & Counselling, Safety and Risk Management, Speech & Language Therapy, TESOL and Intercultural Communication, Translation Studies

Useful shelf numbers - History

Library books are arranged by the Dewey Decimal classification scheme whereby each subject is represented by a number. You will find books on the same subject will have the same number. The shelfmark is preceded by the letter D and will be followed by 3 letters, which are usually the first 3 letters of the author's name.

Useful History and related subjects shelfmarks:

D 610.9 History of medicine

D 940 European history

D 941.1 Scottish history

D 941.5 Irish history

D 947 Russian history

D 956 Middle Eastern history

D 973 American history