Trial until 17 May 2024: Subculture Archives

Posted on 19 April 2024 by iholowaty

We are now trialling Subculture Archives and welcome feedback from students and researchers. This resource is useful for the study of social and cultural history, visual culture, and more generally, the lived experience of the British youth as they grew up in the 20^th century.

Important: Click on ‘Log in via your University or Institution’. Select ‘University of Oxford’ and enter your SSO.

Subculture Archives provides online access to a multimedia archive of primary sources which documents 100 years of youth culture through the scenes, styles, sounds and signifiers of different youth movements. It illustrates Britain’s evocative subculture and counterculture, as expressed through Mods, Skins, Grime and Punks, and the football and the rave scene.

It contains…

over 75,000 images and photographs
recorded and transcribed oral histories, podcasts and playlists;
15,000 flyers and ephemera;
many examples of fashion, graphic design and printed publications.

Topical collections include:

Carnival
Crowds
DJ
Fashion
Fast Food
Graffiti and street art
LGBTQ+ life
Pets and animals
Pre-war youth
Protest and rebellion
Pub culture
School and learning
Teenage bedrooms
Work and employment
Festivals
Public transport
Sports

You browse and search in a variety of ways.

The trial ends on 17 May 2025.

Please send any feedback to Isabel Holowaty.

While you are here, check out:

Popular culture in Britain and America 1950-1975: Rock and Roll (Oxford SSO required)
Museum of Youth Culture

History Thesis Fair for undergraduates on Thurs 25 April (week 1): explore – discover – meet specialists

Posted on 17 April 2024 by iholowaty

We are delighted to run the History Thesis Fair for second-year undergraduates this year on THURS 25 APRIL 2024 2-4pm, Exam Schools.

Come and meet over 50 specialists to talk about resources for your dissertation topic!

The Fair is an excellent opportunity for students to gain a wider perspective on the wealth and riches of research sources available for your field of study.

At the Fair you can learn about resources you may not yet have yet considered and meet the curators of collections who can guide you towards relevant material or useful finding tools.

30 stalls will cover many areas:

Special Collections, libraries and archives, e.g.
- Archives & manuscripts
- College Libraries (Special Collections) & College Archives’ Collections
- Early Printed Books
- Oxford Brookes University Special Collections and Archives
- Oxfordshire History Centre
- UK Government and International Intergovernmental Publications
Topical stalls, e.g.
- Biography
- Economic & Social History
- English
- Digital Scholarship
- LGBTQ, Gender & Sexuality
- History of Science & Medicine
- Visual culture
- and more
Geographical stalls, e.g.
- Africa & Commonwealth
- East Asia & South Asia
- Eastern Europe and Russia
- Great Britain & West Europe
- Middle East, Hebrew & Judaica, Caucausus & Central Asia
- Latin America
- United States

You will also have an opportunity to speak to other students who have previously written dissertations and learn about their TOP 10 TIPS.

At our Information Skills stall, learn what courses are laid on to help you develop the skills you will need.

The format of the Fair encourages you to explore and discover new materials at your own pace, to be curious, to network and to make connections to experts and their peers while also learning about creative use of sources in Digital Scholarship.

Accessibility

The main entrance to the Examination Schools is stepped. There is a ramped entrance immediately to the left of the main entrance. There is lift access throughout the building, two wheelchair accessible toilets and hearing support systems that can be deployed where needed throughout the building. Most areas of the building have level access.

The accessible toilet is gender neutral and is at the bottom of the staircase opp. Room 8.

If you have any queries, please email library.history@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Get yourself kitted out for your research

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Doing research on your thesis also means that you will need to learn new skills, deepening your knowledge of resources and sources and how to go about locating and using them.

To help you on this exciting journey, the library has organised a series of talks, classes, and workshops which are designed to

Upskill your information searching and research skills;
Learn about the rich sources available to them in Oxford (and beyond) and know how to access them;
Learn how to handle the material, incl. archives, correct citation practices, ethical research practice, etc.;
Get to know relevant experts in Oxford libraries and archives.

Check out the classes and workshops set up for you to help you learn the skills you will need.

Earth Month 2024

Posted on 8 April 2024 by ljones

Earth Month takes place during April every year, with Earth Day falling on 22 April. First held in 1970, EARTHDAY.ORG’s annual campaign aims to “diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide”, and focuses this year on Planet vs. Plastics. Since the 1960s and 70s, more and more historians have been asking how previous generations used and inhabited their own environments, how the environment has shaped human history, and how people in the past dealt with ecological crises such as those we are facing today. At the History Faculty Library, we have put up a display of books that cover environmental history from recycling in the eighteenth century to slavery in the American South.

As well as physical books, we have lots of e-resources on the topic of environmental history across the world. These are available online to Oxford University members on SOLO – just make sure you’re signed on with your ‘Single Sign-On’. Click on the book cover below to access the SOLO record. Many more e-resources and physical books can be found on SOLO by searching for ‘environmental history’ or by following the links above.

Taylor and Francis Humanities and Social Sciences ebooks 2016-2025

Posted on 2 April 2024 by iholowaty

Readers have been severely impacted by the British Library outage and the loss of access to electronic legal deposit material. To support our readers, Bodleian Libraries have set up an ebook deal with Taylor & Francis EBA (access until 30 December 2025).

Taylor & Francis (including the Routledge imprint) is by the largest depositor of Non Print Legal Deposit (NPLD also known as eLD) material, with over 124,000 items held in the currently inaccessible British Library repository. Calculations from NPLD usage statistics from 2016-June 2023 show that T&F is also the most heavily used publisher (over 30,000 title accesses). Content, usage and requests fall predominantly in the subject areas of Humanities and Social Sciences.

An evidence-based acquisitions (EBA) package for the “missing” NPLD content from Taylor and Francis was decided to be the single most effective measure to mitigate the effect of the BL outage, which has had a far greater impact on monographs and edited collections, in comparison to journal holdings, where our subscriptions and R&P deals have largely covered the effects of the outage.

The new EBA for 2016-2025 (running until end 2025, and adding new content on publication) provide coverage for most currently missing titles and for the anticipated delay in restoring ingest of new publications.

Access has been turned on for current content and the individual records have been added to SOLO. Current content is just over 30,000 ebooks, splitting 60:40 between Social Sciences and Humanities. By the end of the subscription (December 2025), Oxford will have had access to over 35,000 titles.

At the end of the agreement, the libraries can select titles for perpetual access to the value of the deal, with a 17% uplift). Selections will be carried by library staff, with the benefit of the usage statistics during the period of the deal, to inform choices on permanent retentions.

While you are here:

Still need to use the Britsh Library? See information on how to use their services and search their collections.
All individual ebooks for Oxford researchers are available in SOLO. You can also browse for ebook packages to see what is available.
Need to tell us that we are missing a book? Use the Purchase Request option at the top of SOLO.

New: GLOBALISE – digitised Dutch East India Company archives for 17th & 18th centuries

Posted on 15 March 2024 by iholowaty

Researchers interested in colonial history and Dutch history will be delighted to know that over 5 million scans of the Dutch East India Company are now freely and fully searchable at GLOBALISE.

GLOBALISE Unlocking the history of early globalisation and colonialism for researchers and the general public. Image of Hougly complex in Bengalen Consisting of approximately twenty-five million pages, the UNESCO Memory of the World-listed archives of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) offer a unique view on interactions between European and non-European actors in Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 5 million scans of the ‘Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren’ (1610-1796) of the VOC are now fully searchable. From early October 2023, a prototype of the GLOBALISE transcriptions viewer is online at: https://transcriptions.globalise.huygens.knaw.nl/.

These archives not only provide insights into the VOC’s operations but also offer rare glimpses into early modern societies in Asia, Africa, and Australia. For these regions, where few archival sources exist, the VOC archives hold unique and invaluable information, illuminating their multifaceted interactions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This resource is useful for those interested in early modern global and colonial history.

While you are here, check out…

freely available digitised sources for Dutch history at Resources Huygens ING.
East India Company (Modules I-V) [Oxford researchers]
India, Raj and Empire [Oxford researchers]
Church Missionary Society Archive [Oxford researchers]

Could you be the next Gale Student Ambassador for Oxford University?

Posted on 13 March 2024 by iholowaty

Calling Oxford University students: fancy getting paid business experience with a global publisher?

Gale is an international publisher of digital archives and other library resources such as eBooks. Gale’s primary sources include full archives of newspapers like The Times, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Economist, as well as period and topical archives like Eighteenth Century Collections Online and Archives of Sexuality and Gender.

Gale are recruiting students to undertake awareness-building activities, so more students find out about, understand and use these fascinating archives! Students from all year groups can apply.

Deadline for applications is 1 May 2024.

The role lasts for the 2024-25 academic year and requires set activities for which Gale Ambassadors are paid £700. Plus, the role is great for your CV:

Business experience – work directly with a global publisher.
Run your own marketing activities – refine ‘marketing copy’ and images to make successful use of social media.
Public speaking – run presentations and training sessions with your fellow students, obtaining valuable public speaking skills.
Have your work published on a company blog – great, shareable evidence of your work.
Network – connect with staff and students at the university, other students internationally, and numerous colleagues at Gale.
Improve your research skills and discover primary sources for your essays – potentially improving your grades!

Interested? Click here for more info and how to apply!

Trial until 10 April 2024: The Civil & Military Gazette Online, 1876-1963

Posted on 12 March 2024 by iholowaty

Oxford researchers are invited to trial The Civil & Military Gazette Online, 1876-1963.

A faded image of a printed gazette with the title of the resource: Civil & Military Gazette, 1876-1963

Civil & Military Gazette Online, 1876-1963 ©Brill

Published in Simla and Lahore, The Civil & Military Gazette stood as an unrivalled media institution, offering extraordinarily broad perspectives on South Asia during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries.

This database offers access to holdings from 1876-1963 and covers British rule in India at its height, partition and the early years of the independent countries of India and Pakistan.

As well as political events, the paper also cultivated and published literary talent, including Rudyard Kipling, some of whose earliest published works first appeared in the Gazette.

The trial can be accessed via SOLO and ends on 10 April 2024.

Please send feedback to Emma Mathieson.

Women’s History Month 2024

Posted on 11 March 2024 by ljones

As it’s now March, the History Faculty Library is celebrating Women’s History Month! This annual campaign is a chance to celebrate and remember women’s contributions to history, culture and society, with International Women’s Day falling on 8 March. Many institutions in Oxford and around the world, including the Ashmolean Museum, will be highlighting women’s stories to inspire us all year round. Check out more IWD events in Oxford here, including the 35th Oxford International Women’s Festival.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Inspire Inclusion. At the History Faculty Library, we’ve put together a diverse display showcasing women’s histories from around the world.

Please do take a look at the display the next time you’re in the Camera, or check out some of our e-books and e-journals exploring women’s histories below. These are available online for Oxford University members – just make sure you sign into SOLO with your ‘Single Sign On’ first. Click on the book cover below to access the SOLO record.

New: Expulsions from German Universities during National Socialism

Posted on 8 March 2024 by iholowaty

We are delighted to report that historians now access have to Vertreibungen aus den deutschen Universitäten im Nationalsozialismus = Expulsions from German Universities during National Socialism via SOLO or Databases A-Z.

This database provides short biographical descriptions of German academics that were forced to leave their academic jobs during the Nazi regime. The expulsion of numerous scientists by the Nazi regime’s brutal policy of exclusion, and the international refugee movements it caused, can be regarded as a significant turning point in the history of science. The “cleansing” of the German universities that began in 1933 led to a considerable loss in Germany’s intellectual milieu.

The text is in German.

Reference entry for Gerhard, Dietrich written by Michael Grüttner. Give brief information on the university, position, birth and death dates, and a brief description of the academic work.

The database covers 1,300 persons who were affected by the dismissals, covering all German universities in detail. The short biographies provide information on academic status and disciplines, religious affiliation, membership in political parties, reasons of expulsion, and also (if applicable) on concentration camp imprisonment, countries of emigration and remigration.

Links are provided to other biographical resources such as Deutsche Biographie.

You can search by person, university, academic displine, birth and death dates. You can also browse by person or academic discipline.

Other related resources (SSO required):

SOLO improvements: Journal Search and shortcuts to purchase and Interlibrary requests

Posted on 20 February 2024 by iholowaty

We continue to improve SOLO for our users. Here is the latest round of changes and tips.

⇒ We have added shortcuts to the top of SOLO and it’s now easier to recommend a purchase or request an item from a library outside Oxford (InterLibrary Request).

⇒ We have added Journal Search to only search or browse for print or electronic journals.This replaces Journals A-Z.

⇒ Top tip: switch from Search Everything to Oxford Collections to only find books, theses, databases, journals (but not 100m+ journal articles, book reviews, etc.)

See our SOLO LibGuide for full details and see below for quick links to useful searches and tools. Once you master SOLO, you will be able to make even more the most of our very rich and extensive collections.

Frontpage of SOLO with pointers highllghting Help to the SOLO LibGuide, Purchase Request to recommend a purchase, Need More? for InterLibrary Requests and '...' (three dots) to see more search options. Further pointers highlight the tip to change the default Search Everything to Oxford Collections and to click on Live Chat on the right to get help during working hours.

More searching options are in the extended section. That is especially useful for browsing for books by subject where you don’t have any author or title.

The Journal Search is also available from here (as well as from the SOLO front page > Useful Links).

In Journal Search, you can browse by subject (may not be the best search for a very large subject like History but it could be useful)…

… or you can search by journal title (not article title!). This is useful if your journal uses very common words – such as History!

Getting help

During working hours, the quickest to get help is to ask our Live Chat (from front page of SOLO).
Check out the SOLO LibGuide.
Ask any of our friendly library staff in our libraries.

Bodleian History Faculty Library at Oxford

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Category Archives: Collections