New: Gallup Analytics – US public opinion data since 1935 & world polls since 2005

Gallup Analytics - landing pageI am delighted to announce that Social Science Library colleagues have subscribed to  Gallup Analytics. It is now accessible via SOLO or Databases A-Z.

Note that the subscription is limited to only one user at a time so here’s a plea to close your browser when you are finished or are going for a cup of tea so that others can access it.

Gallup Analytics is a searchable resource of unique public opinion data and analysis compiled by Gallup, Inc. It includes answers to more than 125,000 questions, and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed in the Unites States since 1935.

With this data resource you can:

  • perform detailed searches on hundreds of U.S. and global metrics
  • examine data by demographic and socio-economic groups, including income, education, age and gender
  • export data to create custom data tables, trends, charts and scatter plots

Gallup Analytics comes in three parts:

  1. Gallup Brain (historic surveys going back to 1935)
  2. Gallup World Poll (surveys from 160+ countries since 2005)
  3. Gallup Daily Tracking (daily surveys across the US since 2008).

Gallup Brain (historic content 1935-2000s)

Historians are most likely going to be interested in Gallup Brain. As it’s not very obvious how to find it, here are some tips:
To access the historic content, click on Gallup Brain (bottom of the homepage)

Gallup Analytics - GallupBrain for historic data

You can browse surveys by decade or search by keyword:

GallupBrain - 1940s

Gallup World Poll (post-2005 surveys)

Here is an example where I’ve asked for mapped EU responses in which EU country immigrants would find a “good place”. Comparing it to 2016 makes a very interesting comparison!

Immigrants – European Union: 55% (2006) Good place – Aggregate

Immigrants – European Union: 55% (2006) Good place – Aggregate

Modernists can find surveys which cover many other topics, amongst others:
  • economic confidence
  • employment
  • entrepreneurial energy
  • confidence in leadership
  • confidence in military and police
  • religion
  • food access
  • corruption
  • freedom of media
  • life evaluations

 

New: European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750

European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 is a freely accessible comprehensive guide to printed works about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It is provided by EBSCO.

European Views of the Americas - logoThe database contains more than 32,000 entries and is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. There is good content from continental Europe.

The European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 database addresses the following subjects and themes:

  • America in literature
  • Botany
  • British in America
  • Catholic Church
  • Commerce
  • Discoveries
  • Dutch in America
  • Economics
  • Fisheries
  • French in America
  • Geography
  • Great Britain–Colonies
  • Indians
  • Jesuits (and other religious orders) in America
  • Law
  • Mines & mineral resources
  • Natural history
  • Navigation
  • Pirates
  • Shipping
  • Slave-trade
  • Spain–Colonies
  • Tobacco
  • Voyages around the world

You can locate material by searching in a variety of ways or browsing for publication (A-Z) or name and geographic lists of publishers, printers and booksellers.

European Views of the Americas - sample

“The database is derived from the seminal reference work, European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1750. Commonly known as the Alden-Landis bibliography (after the co-editors John Alden and Dennis Landis), this reference work features documents produced in Europe that make some mention of the discovery and emerging awareness of the Americas. The work is arranged in chronological order across six volumes. The database is searchable by every category of information found within the printed volumes and will be an invaluable resource for researchers interested in the subject.” http://support.ebsco.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=4994, accessed 21 July 2016

You have a good choice of saving and exporting your citations with permalinks and citation assistance also provided.

Also of interest:

Trial until 8 June: America and Great Britain : diplomatic relations, 1775-1815

Together with the Vere Harmsworth Library, we have organised a trial to America and Great Britain: diplomatic relations, 1775-1815. Oxford readers can access it via SOLO or OxLIP+.

America and Great Britain diplomatic relations - title pgThis resource is the digitised Cambridge Archive Edition 9-volume set of facsimile British diplomatic primary material, charting the emergence of an independent United States and comprising diplomatic correspondence between America and Britain.

It provides access to diplomatic and official correspondence between America and Britain and gives a good insight into the shaping of a nation, from America being referred to as ‘our Colonies and Plantations in North America’ by the King, to its recognition as the ‘United States’ by Britain in 1782.

The correspondence is formed of diplomatic letters between the British Government and American officials including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, John Jay and John Hancock. The collection begins with a résumé of events centered around American protests over taxation, follows the course of the War of Independence, and concludes, after ratification of the Treaty of Ghent in February 1815, with the restoration of normal diplomatic relations.Together these correspondences form a narrative which not only captures major historical events from a contemporary viewpoint, but also provides a vivid, lively and uniquely personal insight into the creators of modern America.

Transcript: "All that the americans want from Europeans is a supply of European manufactures... " America and Great Britain : diplomatic relations, 1775-1815. British government documents. Volume 3. 1783-1791 (Cambridge, 2016), p.344

Transcript: “All that the americans want from Europeans is a supply of European manufactures… ” America and Great Britain : diplomatic relations, 1775-1815. British government documents. Volume 3. 1783-1791 (Cambridge, 2016), p.344

 

The archive is a valuable tool in understanding an era of modernization in diplomatic practises. With the expansion of the British Foreign Office, there was a movement away from the era of the aristocratic amateur towards a more tightly controlled process, where professionalised servants of the British Crown filed regular despatches from across the world to a rigid procedure. The collection also provides an insight into European politics during this period. Conflicts between America, France and Britain arising over trade, defence and diplomacy are explored and increase our understanding of this complex trans-Atlantic triumvirate.

Feedback to isabel.holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or jane.rawson@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Related links:

Trial until 22nd April: Civil Rights in America

The VHL have organised trial access to Readex’s Civil Rights in America: from Reconstruction to the Great Society until 22nd April.

Civil Rights in America is a fully searchable archive of congressional documents related to all aspects of civil rights in the United States, from segregation to women’s suffrage to discrimination of all kinds. The material in this collection includes publications and reports from the US Senate and House of Representatives, the executive branch, congressional committees, special investigations and non-governmental organizations. Please note, there will be significant overlap with our existing congressional resources such as the Serial Set.

Access is available via OxLIP+ until 22nd April 2016 (use single sign-on for remote access). Please send feedback to jane.rawson@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

[re-blogged from the VHL blog post.]

New: Migration to New Worlds

I am pleased to report that Oxford historians now have access to Adam Matthew’s Migration to New Worlds. Following a collaboration between Jisc and Adam Matthew this resource is made freely available to all UK academics and students in higher (HE) and further (FE) education institutions from January 2016.

Migration to New Worlds documents the emigration of peoples to the United States, Canada and Australasia during the period 1800 to 1924, although there are documents from the eighteenth century and also later materials.

Mainly focusing on European emigration, the resource includes material on English, Scandinavian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish and Scottish experiences along with a wealth of material covering Chinese and Japanese movement to the United States.

The majority of the collection comprises unique manuscript correspondence, diaries and travel journals, providing eye-witness accounts and experiences of emigrants across the World. It is also rich in visual content.

Topics covered include: motives for emigration; assisted migration schemes; social conditions and organisation in ports of emigration; ships and shipping lines involved in emigration; government legislation for emigration and immigration; settlement, naturalisation and choice of location; maintaining identities.

This collection of primary sources provides an important and multi-faceted resource for students, teachers and researchers from a diverse range of academic disciplines, including migration studies, history, sociology, law, economics and postcolonial studies.

Migration to New Worlds is now available via SOLO and Databases A-Z.

Watch a webinar on this resource:

Related resources on the web:

Trial until 19th February: African American Newspapers 1827-1998

The Vere Harmsworth Library has organised a trial to Readex’s African American Newspapers series I and II. The trial ends 19th February.

This resource covers 1827-1998, and provides online access to approximately 330 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. The collections include historically significant papers from more than 35 states, and many rare 19th-century titles.

We trialled series I in July 2013. Series II, which has just been released, adds a further 75 titles to the first collection.

Access is available via OxLIP+ until 19th February 2016 (University members can use single sign-on for remote access).

Please send feedback about the trial to jane.rawson@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Also useful:

Check out the rest of the History eResources Desiderata and Trials.

Trial until 5 February: Black Authors 1556-1922

The Vere Harmsworth Library has organised trial access to Readex’s Black Authors: Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia (1556-1922).

This collection offers more than 550 fully catalogued and searchable works by black authors from the Americas, Europe and Africa, expertly compiled by the curators of Afro-Americana Imprints collection, the largest existing collection of its kind. Found within are wide-ranging genres, including personal narratives, autobiographies, histories, expedition reports, military reports, novels, essays, poems and musical compositions.

Major subject areas addressed in Black Authors include Literature, Ethnic History, Colonialism, Gender Studies, Slavery, Diaspora Studies and related fields. As a whole, this collection reveals how the creative efforts of black authors evolved over three centuries. The earliest published works of authors of African descent are largely travel narratives and historical works treating the exploration of the African continent and the collision between European powers with the peoples of Africa.

Access is available via OxLIP+ until 5th February 2016 (use single sign-on for remote access). Please send comments or feedback to jane.rawson@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

[re-blogged from the VHL blog.]

Digital National Security Archive: now via ProQuest

[partially re-blogged from the VHL blog post by Jane Rawson.]

Our subscription to the Digital National Security Archive has moved from its own site to be incorporated into the ProQuest platform. If you’re used to using our other ProQuest resources (Historic Newspapers, American Periodicals, Ethnic NewsWatch, Dissertations & Theses among others), the new search interface will be familiar to you, and as with our other ProQuest subscriptions, it will now be possible to cross-search these with the DNSA.

What is the DNSA?

The Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) provides access to over 500,000 pages of declassified documents, starting in 1945 and going right up to almost the present day for certain topics.  The main way in which this resource differs from Declassified Document Reference System (DDRS) is that it is organised thematically, with documents arranged into collections on specific areas or events such as Afghanistan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, or US military uses of space.  New collections are added relatively frequently, so even if your area of interest is not currently covered it is worth checking back periodically.  More from a VHL Blog post.

Using DNSA Collections on ProQuest

DNSA is arranged as a number of thematic collections, which could be searched individually. There are three ways to do this now it has moved to ProQuest:

  1. From the basic search screen, the collections are listed at the bottom of the page (click ‘show all’ to see the full list). Clicking on any of these collections will take you to a search screen for just that collection.
  2. From the advanced search screen, you can select some or all DNSA collections in the ‘search options’ underneath the search boxes.
  3. Using the ‘select databases‘ option in the blue bar at the top of the screen. Click where it says ‘searching 1 database’ to expand the list, and then you can select whichever ProQuest databases you choose. If you scroll down to select Digital National Security Archive you will see a + sign; clicking on that will expand a further list of the individual DNSA collections for you to select or deselect. This is also how you can cross-search DNSA with other ProQuest databases subscribed to by Oxford.

Check out more guidance on the new platform on

  • Using DNSA Bibliographies, Chronologies and Glossaries on ProQuest
  • Exporting saved searches and references from My Archive – important!

Related resource:

Declassified Documents: DDRS and DNSA

RAI Travel Awards for primary source research in the US

[re-blogged from the VHL blog post by Jane Rawson.]

If you’re an Oxford student writing your thesis on an American topic in History or Politics, and are thinking about travelling to conduct primary source research in the United States, you might like to consider applying for a travel award from the Rothermere American Institute.

Full details of the awards and how to apply may be found on the RAI website. The deadline for submission of applications is 12 noon on Friday 12th June.

New: e-access to The Nation, National Review, The New Republic Digital Archives

[re-blogged from the VHL Blog.]

We’re pleased to announce that, following a trial in the autumn, we have now subscribed to the digital archives of three significant political magazines: The Nation, National Review and The New Republic.

  • The Nation is the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States, beginning publication in 1865, and describes itself as “the flagship of the left”.
  • National Review was founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley, Jr. and is a hugely important source for any study of American conservatism over the past sixty years.
  • The New Republic, founded in 1914, is widely considered important in changing the character of liberalism in the direction of governmental interventionism, both foreign and domestic.

Each archive starts from the first issue and runs up to present, and the three may be cross-searched with each other and also the Readers’ Guide Retrospective database. Access is via Databases A-Z.

Related resource

Readers’ Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982