History
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Databases Explained
Databases are collections of resources such as journal articles and conference papers, and also sometimes book chapters and reports. If you are doing a literature search or systematic review they are a key resource to use.
Databases
The library provides access to several databases relevant to History, including:
- Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) This link opens in a new window The Bibliography of British and Irish History provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles and with the British Empire and Commonwealth during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present. It is the successor to the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History available online from 2002 to 2009. The complete database now contains over 560000 records and is updated three times a year usually in February June and October.
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new window This database provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature philosophy history science the social sciences music art drama archaeology and architecture.
- C19: The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window The Nineteenth Century Index – the most comprehensive and dynamic source for discovering nineteenth-century books periodicals official documents newspapers and archives.
- Cecil Papers This link opens in a new window The Cecil Papers are a privately held archive consisting principally of the correspondence of William Cecil Lord Burghley (1520-1598) and his son Robert the 1st Earl of Salisbury (1563-1612). These two men dominated the administration of government during the reign of Elizabeth I to the extent that critics suggested that England was becoming a regnum Cecilianum. The collection documents their various official roles. The Cecil Papers database offers full-colour images digitised directly from the original Cecil Papers manuscripts at Hatfield House Archives. Also included is a digitised version of the Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury an essential bibliographic tool that provides descriptive records for each document including many full transcriptions extracts and summary abstracts.
- Conditions & Politics in Occupied Western Europe 1940-1945 This link opens in a new window Contains original British Foreign Office documents from the National Archives of the UK representing the majority of Britain's information flow from occupied territories in Europe and from Germany itself after the cessation of normal peacetime diplomatic channels. Resistance economic and social conditions and intelligence operations are all reported through telegrams letters coded messages and reports and this documentary material is contextualised by a Chronology of World War II cine film footage from the Imperial War Museum London and essays on life under German occupation in France by Prof. Rod Kedward the Low Countries by Dr Dirk Martin and Norway by Dr Chris Mann.
- Dictionary of Irish biography This link opens in a new window A collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy this is the most comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published for Ireland.
- Dublin Castle Records 1798-1926 This link opens in a new window Dublin Castle Records 1798-1926 contains records of the British administration in Ireland prior to 1922. This collection comprises materials from Series CO 904 The National Archives Kew UK.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window Over 180000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800 are available. The following modules are available to search within the database: History & Geography Fine Arts & Social Science Medicine Science & Technology Literature & Language Religion and Philosophy Law General Reference.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new window Over 70000 images of original manuscripts and printed material 1492-1969 taken from libraries and archives around the world.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 onwards. It provides selective indexing of historical articles from more than 1,800 journals in over 40 languages back to 1955 and contains over 800,000 records.
- House of Commons Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window Includes papers published 1801-2004. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers delivers page images and searchable full text for each paper along with a detailed subject index.
- Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003 This link opens in a new window This database contains the full facsimile run of the world’s most iconic illustrated newspaper the Illustrated London News. It includes over 260000 pages including specials and presentation pieces
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and basic sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added approximately on a weekly basis.
- Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new window The Making of the Modern World: Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature 1450-1850 provides digital facsimile images on every page of 61000 works of literature on economic and business published from 1450 through 1850. Full-text searching on more than 12 million pages provides researchers unparalleled access to this vast collection of material on commerce finance social conditions politics trade and transport.
- Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) This link opens in a new window A collection of digitized editions of texts concerning economic political legal and ecclesiastical history such as treasury accounts chronicles papal registers etc. Most are from England Ireland and Scotland although some are from Milan and the New World.
- Northern Ireland: A Divided Community, 1921-1972 Cabinet Papers of the Stormont Administration This link opens in a new window The Stormont Administration ran Northern Ireland as a province of the UK from 1921-72. This digital resource offers full-text searching of facsimile images of the complete record of Stormont from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, along with new interpretative essays and resources. "CAB 4" represents a unique record of "how government actually works" through turbulent and often violent times.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Project MUSE is a unique collaboration between libraries and publishers providing 100% full-text affordable and user-friendly online access to high quality humanities arts and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
- State Papers Online This link opens in a new window
A list of other databases relevant for History is available here.
How to Access Databases
It's very simple. You can access any of the Library's databases just by searching the Library Catalogue. Simply enter the name of the database in the search box and click on the database link in the search results. Remember to log in for full access.
Searching within a Database
When you are searching a database, you can access content by searching under:
- subject heading or keyword
- title
- author
- journal name
Getting to the full-text
There are two main kinds of database:
- Bibliographic - they won't show you the full paper straight away, but you can often read an abstract and see the author details. You'll need to check using
if the library has access to the journal article - Full text - will let you open and read the article directly from the list of results
