We now have the following accessibility aids available for readers to borrow and use in the library:
Please ask staff at the desk if you would like to use any of these items.
The Bodleian Libraries have committed substantial external funding to a one-off set of purchases of electronic research resources deemed to be important to researchers in the University. This follows a project to identify desiderata across all subjects and to list suggestions from readers. The list includes items costing up to £125,000 which cannot easily be covered by recurrent budgets. The first tranche of purchases includes a number of important primary sources from Gale Cengage, including some of particular interest to US historians such as NCCO: Women: Transnational Networks and Political extremism & radicalism in the twentieth century, together with their new Gale Digital Scholar Lab, which will allow digital research methods to be applied across all the primary sources published by them and acquired by the Bodleian Libraries.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Women: Transnational Networks
Issues of gender and class ignited nineteenth-century debate in the context of suffrage movements, culture, immigration, health and many other concerns. Using a wide array of primary source documents (serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals) this resource focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late-eighteenth century to the era of suffrage in the early-twentieth century, all through a transnational perspective. The collection contains deep information on European and North American movements, but also expands its scope to include collections from other regions.
Researchers and scholars will find rare content related to:
Source libraries include the Library of Congress, the London School of Economics and Political Science Library, and the Library of the Society of Friends.
Political Extremism & Radicalism in the Twentieth Century
This resource provides access to “a compilation of rare and unique archival collections covering a wide range of fringe political movements. It has been sourced from distinguished libraries and archives across the world but also premiers some previously hidden treasure troves.
With an extensive scope of content focused on political extremism and radical thought, this archive is one of the first digital archives covering such a broad assortment of both far-right and left political groups. It offers a diverse mixture of materials, including periodicals, campaign propaganda, government records, oral histories, and various ephemera, which allow researchers to explore unorthodox social and political movements in new and innovative ways and to understand what impact they have had on today’s society.
The collections cover a period of just over a century (1900s to 2010s) when the world saw the formation of several civil rights movements for the rights of minorities, women’s rights, and gay rights. It also encompasses the rise and fall of a number of peripheral groups deemed ‘extreme’ or ‘radical’ by contemporaries, such as anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-war, communist or socialist, creationist, environmentalist, hate, holocaust denial, new left, survivalist, white supremacist, and white nationalist. Global in scope, although the archive presents materials largely from the US and Britain, it also showcases important factions from Europe and Australia, such as the Norwegian Nazi Party and the Australian National Socialist Party. By spanning multiple geographic regions, the resource shows both the cultural impact of radical groups at a national level as well as the international networking and cross-border exchanges of extreme political movements.
Of particular interest to Americanists are the following collections:
This collection covers U.S. perspectives on Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Trans-Jordan, from Ottoman rule to the era of British and French mandates following the First World War. The archive is sourced from the Central Files of the General Records of the Department of State. The records are under the jurisdiction of the Legislative and Diplomatic Branch of the Civil Archives, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
Details on more new resources now available in Oxford may be found on the History Faculty Library blog:
On 8 May the iSkills programme will run a session on Sources for US History which will be invaluable to anyone embarking on research on US topics, including undergraduates planning their dissertations. You can book a place by clicking on the link below:
Bodleian iSkills: Sources for US History (Wed 8 May 11.00-12.30)
Introduction to key information sources for the study of colonial America and US history. The session will provide an overview of the primary sources available in Oxford and online (such as early printed books, US newspapers and US government papers), as well as guidance on locating material for your research.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and anyone interested in this topic.
Other iSkills sessions coming up which may be of interest to Americanists:
Bodleian iSkills: Managing research data and Data Management Planning (DMPs) (Tue 7 May 10.00-12.00)
Good research data management is vital to academic practice. Effectively storing and managing your project research data preserves it for the future and enables sharing and collaboration. This session introduces the University’s research data policy and outlines the practical impact this will have on your work. The services available at Oxford to assist you will be outlined. This session is not only essential during your current studies but will be invaluable if you plan to continue in research as a career.
Who is this session for? All DPhil students and research staff.
Referencing: Choosing and using software (Tue 7 May 14.00-17.00; repeated Fri 17 May 09.15-12.15)
Formatting your in text citations/footnotes and bibliography correctly for your thesis or publication is a chore. Reference management software makes it easier and saves you time. This introductory session gives an overview of how reference management works, explores the pros and cons of a wide range of reference management packages and gives you the opportunity to try out four different packages so that you can work out which one is best for you. The packages included are RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers and university staff.
Bodleian iSkills: Online resources for Historians (Wed 8 May 09.30-10.45)
A general introduction to the vast range of electronic resources which are available for all historical periods of British and W European history: bibliographical databases, biographical / reference research aids, ebooks and ejournals, web portals, and collections of online primary source materials.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and anyone interested in this topic.
Bodleian iSkills: Google for academic research (Fri 10 May 14.00-16.00)
Google is often dismissed as being irrelevant to the academic literature search. However, changes to the nature of the dissemination of scholarly research and official information in recent years mean that a wealth of relevant information can be accessed via standard Internet search engines such as Google. Too often however such information is lost amongst thousands of irrelevant, spurious and misleading results.
Based on an understanding of how the Google search engine works this practical workshop will show you the basic techniques to quickly filter your results for high quality academic material.
A couple of other search engines will be considered briefly, including DuckDuckGo which has become a popular alternative to Google in the light of concerns about the privacy costs of a ‘free’ search within search engines such as Google or Bing.
Who is this session for? Anyone who is interested in best use of Google for their academic research
For a full list of upcoming workshops in Trinity Term please go to http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/workshops/workshopsbydate.