Category Archives: Uncategorized

Take the SSL home with you: ways to access library materials remotely

Posted on by
Reply
A house in surrounded by a green field. A blue sky with the text "Take the SSL home with you"

If you are an Oxford University student or staff member and need to access library resources while you are away from Oxford, follow our tips below:

Remote access via SOLO

An open laptop with a book on top of it

Access e-books, e-journals and databases remotely by logging in to SOLO with your Single Sign On (SSO) Take a look at the Bodleian Libraries SOLO Guide for further information.

Live Chat

The Bodleian Live Chat box.

For help with finding and using items on SOLO, you can also get immediate assistance via SOLO Live Chat during working hours.

Look for the chat box to the right of the SOLO webpage.

eBooks

Our eBook Subject & Research Guide has lots of information on how to access and use Oxford University eBooks.

ORLO (Oxford Reading Lists Online)

An open laptop with a red book beside it with glasses on top of it.

Most postgraduate reading lists are available on Oxford Reading Lists Online ORLO and scans, online articles and e-books can be accessed there. Take a look at the ORLO reading lists webpage for further information.

Scan & Deliver

An image of the Book Scanner in the Social Science Library.

Scan & Deliver is a free electronic document delivery service which enables you to obtain scans of book chapters or journal articles via email from the Bodleian Libraries’ print collections.

An open laptop on a table with a notebook beside it. Text on the laptop reads "Further Information".

For more information on the above, and to find out about further resources available remotely, consult the Bodleian Libraries Online and Remote Access webpage.

Questions, need help?

A person holding a blue speech bubble with a question mark on it.

Any questions, just get in touch with us!

Email: ssl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Telephone: 01865 271093

Summer Vacation 2025 Opening Hours

A wall clock on a yellow background.

Our opening hours for the vacation (starting on Sunday 29th June) are on our website homepage.

August Bank Holiday 2025 Closure Period

A shingle beach with 4 deckchairs on it. Above them 4 seagulls are flying.

We will be closed for the August Bank Holiday weekend, see our website homepage for further information.

June Resource of the Month: Arcanum Newspapers

Posted on by
Reply

Each month we choose an electronic resource which we feel will be of interest to you.

An infographic of a open laptop. A banner is on top of it which says 'June Resource of the Month.'

Our Resource of the Month for June is Arcanum Newspapers, a huge digital archive of periodicals from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and its successor states.

An open laptop on a table. On the screen are the words 'Arcanum Newspapers.' To the right of the laptop is a cup of coffee and to the left is a notepad and pen.,

Resource Overview

Arcanum Newspapers is a vast digital archive of Central European periodicals, mainly from Hungary and Romania. It spans several million pages, published from the mid-nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. Readers will find magazines, newspapers, academic journals and encyclopaedias, in Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Polish and German, among other languages.

Where can you access the resource

This resource can be accessed via SOLO. A Single-Sign-On (SSO) is required to access the titles remotely, as they are restricted to Oxford University students and staff members.

.

Disability History Month 2024

Posted on by
1

Disability History Month Book Display in the Social Science Library

Disability History Month is being marked from 14th November to 20th December 2024. This year’s theme is Disability, livelihood and employment. The team at the SSL have put together a display of some books from our collection that tie in to the theme and we’ve also included some books that discuss the subject of Disability History more widely.

Logo for Disability History Month 2024 from the UKDHM website

Image copyright of ukdhm.org

A reading list on ORLO has been created for you to peruse. This includes the physical and digital items that are on display this year as well as other useful resources and some titles from last years display.

There is also a reading list on understanding disability on ORLO which was created by a joint team of staff across the Bodleian Libraries, College Libraries and the Oxford Union Library. It covers a range of topics from ‘Disability and the Law’ to ‘Neurodivergence’.

The Disability History Resources LibGuide also contains a great deal of information. This guide was created by the 2022-23 History Faculty Library trainee as part of a year-long project. The resources within were crowdsourced during a Hackathon by 24 volunteer researchers in 2022.

The full Disability History Month Display in the Social Science Library. It includes a mixture of physical and digital books.

Our display contains both physical books and ebooks from both the Social Science Library’s vast collection as well as a few items from the Collections Storage Facility. The display can be found near the issue desk in the Social Science Library and it will be up for the duration of the month.

Book covers of some of the eBooks on the Disability History Month Display

If you would like more information about Disability History Month, UKDHM has a great deal of information about this year’s theme, as well as an archive of previous years. You can find out more on their website.

If you think we’re missing a relevant disability history title from our collections then let us know at ssl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Our Book of the Month choice for August

Posted on by
Reply

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

John Southall retrieving a book from the shelves in the SSL.

August’s Book of the Month was selected by John Southall, Bodleian Data Librarian and Subject Consultant for Economics and Sociology.

 

British social theory: recovering lost traditions before 1950

John Scott

Sage, 2018

HM477.G7.SCO 2018

 

 

 

 

It was chosen because it is an enlightening book, not only for students in the social sciences, but also for scholars interested in social epistemology and the history of (sociological) ideas.

Book Overview

This book represents a fundamental challenge to the study of national traditions in social theory. Beginning with the central problem of unintended consequences in the Scottish enlightenment, John Scott, the leading authority on the history of British social theory, provides an eminently readable account of a largely forgotten and misrecognised sociological tradition.

The main themes detected by Scott focus critically on social structure, cultural idealism, developmental processes, and economic sociology. He argues that by the twentieth century ambitious sociological syntheses were being produced by three major social theorists, Patrick Geddes, Robert MacIver and Leonard Hobhouse, which stand comparison with better known social theories being produced in Europe and the US.

The book discusses how these traditions of theory were lost and forgotten and sets out why they are gaining renewed importance today.

Reviews

“John Scott has done a great service by providing this reconstruction of the long and distinguished history of British social theory, a tradition which the rest of the world reacted to and incorporated. Much of this history of social theory has been hidden in and obscured by the specialist literature on these thinkers – Scott brings them to light in an accessible form.”

Stephen Turner, University of South Florida

“A magisterial discussion of key lines of thought in the submerged history of classical sociology in Britain pre-1950. It examines key questions concerning what social theory in British sociology was, who did it and the ideas produced and is essential reading in re-evaluating the history of British sociology.”

Liz Stanley, University of Edinburgh

How can I access it?

We have one lending copy of this book, which is located on our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is HM477.G7.SCO 2018.

Image of an open book with the pages curled to form a love heartWhat would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.