Bye-bye COPAC, hello Library Hub Discover – search UK and Irish libraries

A generation of researchers and librarians will have grown up with COPAC (Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues), the union catalogue for research libraries in the UK and Ireland.

Today (31 July 2019), COPAC was retired and replaced by JISC Library Hub Discover (https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/). Time to update those bookmarks!

Library Hub Discover currently contains over 39 million records contributed by 110 institutions across the UK and Ireland. The holdings will include books, journal titles, grey literature, etc. but also maps which you can locate using Advanced Search.

Library Hub Discover is a great resource to discover rare and specialist material tucked away in other libraries or to find out what is available in a library near you.

Contributing libraries include national libraries (e.g. British Library, National Library of Scotland, etc.), Higher Education libraries and some specialist libraries (e.g. Historic England Library, National Gallery Library, National Portrait Gallery Library, National Trust Libraries, Royal Asiatic Society, Royal College of Physicians of London, Royal Society Library, Science Museum Library, The National Archives Library, V&A Libraries, Wellcome Library and many more).

While you are here…

… have you considered using WorldCat, a major union catalogue for US libraries? Excellent to just find out whether something actually exists. Access our subscription (better) version or the free version.

… do you know about the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog, a huge union catalogue based in Germany? Excellent of course for German-speaking countries, but you can also, in a single search, locate collections in worldwide library or library-consortia catalogues.

Calling all history grads interested in long 19th century

Vic

Where next after the Queen Victoria’s Journals project?

The Bodleian Libraries have recently collaborated with the Royal Archives and ProQuest to publish a complete digital edition of Queen Victoria’s journals.  All 141 volumes are now available online as part of the Queen Victoria’s Journals resource.

Opportunity for grad students to identify further collections for the Bodleian Library and Royal Household to collaborate on

Following on from the success of the project, the Bodleian Libraries will be holding a focus group workshop to discuss ideas for future collaboration with the Royal Household.  The workshop will consider related collections from the ‘long’ 19th century held at Oxford, Windsor and further afield, and will attempt to surface areas of scholarship which new collaborative initiatives might support.

What? Focus group workshop to discuss ideas for future collaboration with the Royal Household

Who? History graduate students with an interest in the long nineteenth century

Where? The Rothermere American Institute, Oxford

When? Thursday 11 July 2013

  • 1pm: buffet lunch
  • 2pm: workshop
  • 4pm: closing drinks

How? Please register your interest in attending by contacting David Tomkins or Amanda Flynn at qvj@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Related Links Queen Victoria’s Journals | Royal Archives

History Database of the Month Confidential Prints: Africa

The database of the month for May is Confidential Prints: Africa 1834-1966.

cpa

What is this database?

Confidential Print: Africa offer full text access to complete volumes of all British Government Confidential Print for Africa, from the Colonial, Dominion, Foreign and War Offices from the National Archives.  The series originated out of a need for the Government to preserve all of the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Some of these were one-page letters or telegrams; others were large volumes or texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.

The introduction to the database provides an overview of the collections covered within the database and also gives some examples of the types of material included.  There are telegrams noting the South African government’s support for sanctions against Italy after the Italian conquest of Abyssinia and despatches discussing newly independent Ghana’s slide into authoritarianism.

map result

An example map result of British Somaliland in 1926

The collections include

  • Reports
  • Dispatches
  • Correspondence
  • Descriptions of leading personalities
  • Political summaries
  • Economic analyses
  • hundreds of colour maps

How can I access it?
University of Oxford members can access this subscription resource on and off campus via OxLIP+. Remember to sign on to OxLIP+ with your single sign on when accessing the database off-campus.

Other similar databases

Related Links OxLIP+ | Primary Sources Online Guide for Historians (PDF)  | Modern History Sources Guide (PDF) | Guide to using OxLIP+Contact the History Librarian | Bodleian Library Official Papers

History Database of the Month: ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Our database of the month for April is ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

PHN

Historical Newspapers offer full text searching and access to the archives of some key British, Irish, Indian and US newspapers, incl. a selection of black newspapers,  from the 1800s to the 2000s:

scotsman

A search result from The Scotsman

  • The Guardian 1821-2003
  • The Observer 1791-2009
  • The Times of India 1838-2002
  • The Irish Times 1859-2010
  • The Weekly Irish Times 1867-1958
  • The Scotsman 1817-1950
  • The Chicago Defender 1910-1975
  • The New York Amsterdam News 1922-1993
  • The New York Times 1851-2009
  • The Pittsburgh Courier 1911-2002
  • The Washington Post 1877-1996

The archive offers access to primary source material with full text search and also the original print layout of the article so that you can see the context of the article within that edition of the newspaper.

Advanced search tools allow cross-searching with other ProQuest databases (e.g. Dissertations and Theses) and also narrowing results to specific dates, publications and types of newspaper article. Results can be limited to images or editorial content and advertising and obituaries can also be searched.

How can I access it?
University of Oxford members can access this subscription resource on and off campus via OxLIP+. Remember to sign on to OxLIP+ with your Single Sign-On (SSO) when accessing the database off-campus.

Database of the month display in the Upper Camera

Database of the month display in the Upper Camera

Other newspaper archives online

Great Britain and Ireland:

Europe

Americas

Related Links OxLIP+ | Guide to using OxLIP+ | Bookmarked websites for newspapers (HFL Delicious) | Primary Sources Online Guide for Historians (PDF)  | Modern History Sources Guide (PDF)Contact the History Librarian

History Database of the Month: Rock and Roll

Our database of the month for March is Popular culture in Britain and America 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest.

Homepage of the database

Homepage of the database

What is this database?

An example image from the database - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament © The People's History Museum

An example image from the database – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament © The People’s History Museum

The database includes a variety of primary sources, including video, images and printed material covering the period 1950 to 1075 in the UK and US.  It also has some material on other parts of Europe (for instance Mai ’68 student protests in France).  The collection can be browsed by type of material, topic and date and also searched for key words.  The main themes covered by the material are:

  • Changing Lifestyles, 1950-1975
  • Youth Culture
  • Student Protests across Europe and the US
  • Mai ‘68
  • Popular Culture; TV; Music; Movies
  • Book, Magazine and Film Censorship
  • Civil Rights; Women’s Liberation; Minority Groups
  • The Space Race
  • Consumerism; Credit Cards; Computers
  • The Vietnam conflict
  • Nuclear Disarmament

In addition to the primary sources, chronologies, essays by specialists such as Robert Opie, a dictionary of key terms and links to other online resources are included in the database.

oxlip +How can I access it?
University of Oxford members can access this subscription resource on and off campus via OxLIP+. Remember to sign on to OxLIP+ with your single sign on when accessing the database off-campus.

Other useful databases on 20th century popular culture

Related Links OxLIP+ | Primary Sources Online Guide for Historians (PDF)  | Modern History Sources Guide (PDF) | Guide to using OxLIP+Contact the History Librarian

#newbooks in the HFL House of Commons 1604-1629 and 1820-1832

House of Commons books

We have two new sets of quick reference books in the History of Parliament series.   Further details about the books are available from the History of Parliament project website.

The links below will take you to their records on the SOLO catalogue.

These books are now nestling between other House of Commons texts in the HFL’s quick reference section at shelfmark B403 Hist in the Maitland Room.

(c) The History of Parliament

The History of Parliament project also has a corresponding free online resource.  It includes biographies of over 20000 Ministers of Parliament, more than 2800 constituency surveys and articles about various parliaments from 1386 to 1832.

 

 

New: Documents on British Policy Overseas

The trial of Documents on British Policy Overseas (DBPO) was very well received. We are pleased to announce that thanks to special funding we have secured access this database. DBPO provides users with access to a wide range of primary source documents from Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Selected and edited by the official historians of the FCO it includes many documents specifically de-classified for inclusion in the series. The resource contains three distinct collections, which together form a continuous exploration of British foreign policy and diplomatic history: British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898-1914; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1918-1939 and Documents on British Policy Overseas. Please note that DBPO is not yet complete and that content is regularly being added to. Access is via OxLIP+. Use SSO for remote access.