It gives us great pleasure to announce some end-of-year purchases of major databases.

They can all be accessed via OxLIP+ and will be added to SOLO shortly. Oxford users have remote access and should use their Single Sign-On username and password. All other readers are welcome to use the databases in any of the Bodleian Libraries. Want to register as a reader? Check out our Admissions page.

State Papers Online II: The Tudors 1509-1603 (Foreign)

Part II completes the State Papers of the Tudor period by reuniting the Foreign, Scotland, Borders and Ireland papers for the 16th century together with the Registers (‘Minutes’) of the Privy Council for the whole of the Tudor period. Its sources are The National Archives, London: SP 46,. 49, 50-53, 59-63,65, 66, 68-71, 75, 77-85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94 – 99, 101-106, 108, and PC 2 British Library: Selected documents from the Cotton, Harley and Yelverton Collections.

Related interest: SPO1 (Tudor Domestic Papers) is already available.

Early European Books 2 (Italian collection)

Early European Books builds upon and complements Early English Books Online (EEBO) and is largely concerned with non-Anglophone materials. All works printed in Europe before 1701, regardless of language, fall within the scope of the project, together with all pre-1701 works in European languages printed further afield.

Collection 2 contains early printed volumes from the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firence (National Central Library of Florence). The selection of works focuses on four collections of particular historic and bibliographic importance within the library’s holdings from this period:

The Nencini Aldine Collection. More than 1,000 editions printed by the Aldine Press, founded by Aldo Manuzio the Elder (also known as Aldus Manutius) in Venice in 1495, and continued by his wife, son and grandson until the 1590s. The Aldine Press was one of the most historically significant institutions in the early history of printed books, with numerous innovations including the first use of italic type and the adoption of the smaller, more portable, octavo paper size.

Marginalia. A collection of more than 80 sixteenth- and seventeenth-century volumes which have been identified for the importance of the postillati, or marginal annotations. Researchers will be able to read marginal notes written by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) on his own personal copies of works by Euclid, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso and Horace. Other notable authors include Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (nephew of Michelangelo the painter and sculptor), the playwright Lodovico Castelvetro and the poet Alessandro Tassoni. Continuing the astrological theme, there are also editions of works by Galileo and Johannes Kepler with annotations by Galileo’s follower, the mathematician and scientist Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703).

Incunabula: almost 1,200 volumes, including rare first editions of the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, and 100 volumes by the controversial preacher Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498).

Sacred Representations. Over 600 sixteenth- and seventeenth-century editions of sacre rappresentazioni, popular verse plays depicting Biblical scenes, episodes from the lives of the saints and Christian legends, which were originally performed in Florence and elsewhere in Tuscany and are considered by scholars to form the foundations of Italian theatre. Although many of the texts are anonymous, those by named authors include Castellano Castellani’s Figliuol prodigo and Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Rappresentazione di San Giovanni e Paolo.

Related databases: Early English Books Online, Making of the Modern World 1455-1850, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Early American Imprints I 1639-1800.

Periodicals Archive Online 7

Collection of international historical humanities and social science journals. Importantly it includes The Spectator (1828-2000).

The Spectator is an important British weekly magazine which is generally considered to be a right-of-centre and conservative magazine. It focuses largely on political and cultural aspects.

Oxford currently has access to PAO 1-5 and 7.

The Financial Times Historical Archive,1888-2006

The Financial Times Historical Archive provides an online, fully-searchable facsimile run of the London edition of the FT, from its first issue in 1888 to the end of 2006. Each item in this complete collection is categorized by both subject and topic, with every individual article, advertisement and market listing included and searchable for retrieval individually and in the context of the full page and issue of the day.

Related databases: for our growing selection historical newspapers, go to OxLIP+, select Topic tab and select Newspapers.

Mass Observation 2011 update

The latest update to Mass Observation Online will see a further 200,000 pages added to the resource, bringing the total to around half a million pages of unique material for the study of Britain, 1937-1955. All material for this section has been digitised in colour.

Diaries: Men and Women, 1943-1945
Directives: Men and Women, 1943-1945
The Worktown Collection
Topic Collection 26: “Britain Can Make It”
Topic Collection 42:  Posters 1939-1947
Topic Collection 63:  Smoking Habits 1937-1965
Topic Collection 85: Drinking Habits
Topic Collection 86: Gambling

Adds new sources to existing Mass Observation Online.

FBIS Western Europe 1974-1996

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Report has been the United States’ principal record of political and historical open source intelligence for nearly 70 years. The original mission of the FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe, and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 constitutes a unique archive of transcripts of foreign broadcasts and news that provides insight into the second half of the 20th century; many of these materials are firsthand reports of events as they occurred.

FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 consist of translated broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the globe. These media sources were monitored in their languages of origin, translated into English, and issued by an agency of the US government

This FBIS collection complements those for other areas, e.g. Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Latin America, Middle East, South Asia, etc.

Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers 1500-1700

Perdita provides access to the manuscripts of early modern women writers, from diaries to works of drama, and from widely scattered locations. Detailed catalogue descriptions are linked with complete digital facsimiles of the original MSS, providing a wide variety of search and browsing options. There is extensive biographical information, notes on provenance, bibliographies, the first and last lines of all poetry, and contextual essays and notes on ‘Perdita in the Classroom’.

Latin American Newspapers, 1805-1922

This important online collection provides more than 30 fully searchable Latin American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries. Featuring titles from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and elsewhere, the collection offers unprecedented coverage of the people, issues and events that shaped the region between 1805 and 1922. Through eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, matrimony notices and obituaries, this unique collection chronicles the evolution of Latin American culture and daily life over two centuries.

Related databases: for our growing selection historical newspapers, go to OxLIP+, select Topic tab and select Newspapers.

African Writers Series (via LION)

The electronic edition of Heinemann’s African Writers Series, providing searchable online access to the founding works of modern African literature from 1962-2003, mostly now out of print. Over 260 volumes of fiction, poetry, myths, drama, memoirs and reportage are included from a wide geographic range across Africa, mostly written in English but including some translated volumes. Each work is available in full text, re-keyed from authoritative editions, and every author has an author page with links to all their works and a biography specially commissioned for the collection.

Related databases: Literature Online (LION)