Category Archives: For Postgraduate students

Trial until 22 June: Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517–1925

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We warmly invite Oxford researchers and students to trial Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517–1925.

This resource documents the history and impact of pandemics from the 16th century to the early 20th century with a particular focus on the plague, cholera, smallpox and influenza.

It will be of interest to those researching history of medicine, history of public health, but also social and economic history, and those studying the impact of pandemics on British society and culture in the course of five centuries more generally.

Landing page of this database shows a single search box and the following quote: "Responses to pandemics over four centuries This example of what today we would call pandemic planning is just one of the remarkable documents contained in British Online Archives’ new collection, Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517–1925. This focuses on diseases that have had a significant impact on British society." Tabs at the top of the search screen read: Overview, Volumes & Documents, Search, Key Data, Downloads, Contextual Essays, Editorial Board

Copyright: Microform Academic Publishers

Over 79,000 images come from the collections of The National Archives, British Library, University College London and London Metropolitan Archives.

Snippet of PC 1/4399: Correspondence and Quarantine Questionnaire Regarding the Crew Health of Various Ships.

PC 1/4399: Correspondence and Quarantine Questionnaire Regarding the Crew Health of Various Ships Copyright: Microform Academic Publishers

The collection opens with sources relating to the first state-mandated quarantine in England in 1517. It concludes with documentation regarding the devastating effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic (often referred to as the “Spanish Flu” pandemic).

The material is rich and diverse. Included are correspondence, certificates, minutes, records, registers, treatises, case notes, surveys, and observations. You will also come across prayers to help safeguard populations from plague, records of attempts to transmit smallpox via infected letters, prosecutions of those failing to comply with government-imposed quarantines, registers of patented designs featuring vaccination and sanitation equipment, and sheet music to boost morale during the influenza pandemic that followed the First World War.

This collection likewise contains sources drawn from the papers of some of the most influential figures in medical and social history, such as Edward Jenner, Edwin Chadwick, Florence Nightingale, and John Snow.

Email feedback to Isabel.holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

While you are here, why not check out…

Mental Health Awareness Week 2024

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Mental Health Awareness Week is an annual campaign aiming to combat stigma and promote understanding of mental health running from 13th to 19th May. At the History Faculty Library, we have put together a display on the history of mental health, featuring books that shed light on the struggles individuals have faced with their mental and behavioural health and the evolution of attitudes towards mental illness throughout history. It also includes works on the history of emotions, exploring how humans have expressed and understood their complex feelings over time.

As well as physical books, we also have a variety of e-books and e-journals which explore these issues. When signed into SOLO with your ‘Single Sign On’, the following e-resources will be available for Oxford University Members—click on the covers below to access their SOLO records.

The Oxford handbook of the history of psychology global perspectives Madness in civilization by Andrew Scull Madness cracked by Mick Power Voices in the history of madness : personal and professional perspectives on mental health and illness From Melancholia to Depression : Disordered Mood in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry by Asa Jansson Anxiety : A Philosophical History by Bettina Bergo The Routledge history of madness and mental health Our minds, our selves : a brief history of psychology by Keith Oatley

Many more e-resources and physical books can be found on SOLO when searching “Mental illness — History“. Check out the Bodleian mental illness history LibGuide for further resources (including specific resources on depression and PTSD).

Please follow these links for information about Bodleian Libraries Wellbeing Sessions and the Student Welfare and Wellbeing webpages!

Trial until 17 May 2024: Subculture Archives

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Museum of Youth Culture - Subculture Archives

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 20th century.

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

Snippet showing range of photographs for 9 topical collections for Carnival, Crowds, DJs, Pets & animals, Pre-war youth, Protest & Rebellion, Work & employement, Festivals, Public Transport.

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.

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Earth Month 2024

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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.

When smoke ran like water : tales of environmental deception and the battle against pollution Ecological imperialism : the biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900 The Oxford handbook of environmental history Global environmental history : 10,000 BC to AD 2000 Environment and history (journal) Environmental history (journal) An environmental history of the Middle Ages : the crucible of nature From the Ground Up : Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement

Taylor and Francis Humanities and Social Sciences ebooks 2016-2025

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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:

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

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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…

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

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

Paid Publisher Ambassador Role. Deadline 1 May 2024. Young man and woman sitting next to each other with a laptop between them.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!

Women’s History Month 2024

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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.

LGBT+ History Month display on four shelves. Left to right: 'Women intellectuals and leaders in the Middle Ages', 'Why they marched : untold stories of the women who fought for the right to vote', 'A herstory of economics', 'Woman : the American history of an idea', 'The century of women : how women have transformed the world since 1900', 'Uncontrollable women : radicals, reformers and revolutionaries', 'Women in world history', 'Writing women's history since the renaissance', 'A black women's history of the United States', 'Vanguard : how black women broke barriers, won the vote, and insisted on equality for all', 'A lesbian history of Britain : love and sex between women since 1500', 'Public faces, secret lives : a queer history of the women's suffrage movement', 'Women of Westminster : the MPs who changed politics', 'Women in the history of science : a sourcebook', 'No straight path : becoming women historians'.

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.

How Women Became Poets : A Gender History of Greek Literature Schooling the system : a history of Black women teachers Reshaping women's history : voices of nontraditional women historians Journal of women's history Invisible women exposing data bias in a world designed for men Gendering the Master Narrative : Women and Power in the Middle Ages Gender and history journal The Wife of Bath : A BiographyForgotten wives : how women get written out of history

 

Easter Vacation Loans

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We are almost at the end of Hilary Term and so the History Faculty Library will be moving into the vacation loan period. From Monday 4th March (8th week), all books issued from the library won’t need to be returned until Tuesday 23rd April (1st week, Trinity).

This also applies to any online renewals of current loans that take place from Monday 4th onwards. However, if there is a hold request on a book you have, it will need to be brought back by the original due date.

As always, you can check due dates and renew books through your SOLO account. And if you have any questions please come and speak to staff in the Radcliffe Camera or drop us an email at library.history@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Happy Easter reading!