Welcome
Hello, this is Lauren, your subject librarian for History. I can be contacted by email at l.cummings@gold.ac.uk, or you can request a one-to-one appointment online. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions about Library resources or referencing, and do have a look at the other links on this guide. Please view this video to get a general introduction to researching History materials.
History databases
Below are a selection of databases that can be used to search for subject-specific journal articles, book chapters, and archive materials. For a list of more general electronic resources that can be used to find links to full-text e-journal databases, on-line indexes and bibliographic databases, please see the E-resources A-Z list.
- Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new windowAn index of historical articles covering the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, with access to the full text of more than 500 journals and 140 books. Video guides to searching the resource can be found here.
Partially in Library Search - Historical Texts This link opens in a new windowHistorical Texts brings together four historically significant collections for the first time: Early English Books Online (EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century collection and the UK Medical Heritage Library (UKMHL). Video guides to using the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - British Online Archives This link opens in a new windowBritish Online Archives is home to over seventy digitised primary source collections, dedicated to teaching and research within the Humanities and Social Sciences with collections ranging from colonial, missionary and transatlantic relations to twentieth century political and social development, cover four-hundred years of world history. A video guide to the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window
To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
Mass Observation Online offers revolutionary access to one of the most important archives for the study of Social History in the modern era. Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
Not in Library Search - Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa This link opens in a new windowStruggles for Freedom: Southern Africa brings together materials from various archives and libraries throughout the world documenting colonial rule, dispersion of exiles, international intervention, and the worldwide networks that supported successive generations of resistance within the region. Video guides to searching the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - Archives of Sexuality & Gender This link opens in a new window To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 covers topics including LGBTQ activism and the HIV/AIDS crisis. It provides researchers with the documents necessary to delve deep into the Gay Rights Movement with resources that may otherwise go undiscovered. Repositories for this collection include: Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation; Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives; Women's Energy Bank; GLBT Historical Society; National Library of Medicine; among other archives. A video guide to searching the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - Early European Books This link opens in a new windowEarly European Books parts 1-4 traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the close of the seventeenth century, offering full-colour, high-resolution facsimile images of rare and hard-to-access printed sources via ProQuest Archives.
In Library Search - Early English Books Online (EEBO) 1473-1700 This link opens in a new windowEarly English Books Online (EEBO) contains the scanned images, and full-text digital versions where available, of over 125,000 books published in English up to 1700. Video guides to using the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online) This link opens in a new windowPart of JISC Historical Texts. ECCO is a digital collection of more than 180,000 titles published in Great Britain and its colonies from 1701-1800. Video guides to using the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 This link opens in a new windowThis new bibliographic database is a valuable index for libraries, scholars and individuals interested in European works that relate to the Americas. EBSCO Publishing, in cooperation with the John Carter Brown Library, has created this resource from “European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed In Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750,” the authoritative bibliography that is well-known and respected by scholars worldwide. The database contains more than 32,000 entries and is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Video guides to searching the resource can be found here.
Partially in Library Search - Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration This link opens in a new windowFrom the century of immigration, through to the modern era, Migration to New Worlds charts the emigration experience of millions across 200 years of turbulent history. Explore the rise and fall of the New Zealand Company, discover British, European and Asian migration and investigate unique primary source personal accounts, shipping logs, printed literature and organisational papers supplemented by carefully compiled teaching and research aids. In Library Search
- Making of the Modern World: Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature 1450-1850 This link opens in a new window To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
Making of the Modern World (MOMW) is the world's most comprehensive collection for researching history through the lens of trade, wealth and economics from the last half of the 15th century to the mid-19th century it provides materials that offer new ways of understanding the expansion of world trade, the Industrial Revolution and the development of modern capitalism.
Not in Library Search - Human Rights Studies Online This link opens in a new windowHuman Rights Studies Online is a research and learning database providing comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than thirty additional subjects. Our editorial board includes Laetitia Atlani-Duault (IRD; Hunter College/CUNY), Olivier Bercault (University of San Francisco), Phillip Cantrell (Longwood University), Catherine Filloux (Playwright), Pamela Graham (Columbia University), Adam Jones (University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus), Laura McGrew (Consultant, Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation), David Scheffer (Northwestern University), and Ruti Teitel (New York Law School; London School of Economics.) In Library Search
- Social Sciences Premium Collection This link opens in a new windowThe Social Sciences Premium Collection is a tool for cross-checking the Criminology Collection, Education Collection, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), Library & Information Science Collection, Linguistics Collection, Politics Collection, Social Science Database, and the Sociology Collection. A video guide to searching the resource can be found here.
In Library Search
Below are a selection of databases that can be used to search for subject-specific newspaper, pamphlet and magazine articles, as well as parliamentary papers. For a more comprehensive list of newspaper databases please see the Newspapers section of the e-resources A-Z list.
- LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
LGBT Magazine Archive provides access to back issues of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts. Some publications may contain explicit content. Not in Library Search - Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowGale Primary Sources is a site which allows you to easily cross-search our Gale newspaper archives:
* 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
* 19th Century UK Periodicals: New Readerships
* British Library Newspapers, part I and II
Not in Library Search - 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new windowThe Burney Collection Newspapers contains 1 million pages from 17th-18th Century newspapers, newsbooks, Acts of Parliament, addresses, broadsides, pamphlets and proclamations. It is the most comprehensive collection of early English newspapers.
Not in Library Search - Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new windowContains influential national and regional newspapers representing political and cultural segments of 19th century British society with 2 million newspaper pages
selected by experts in the field.
Not in Library Search - Historical Newspapers: The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times (1859 - 2016) This link opens in a new windowArchive access to The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times from 1859 - 2016.
In Library Search - Nexis This link opens in a new windowNexis contains thousands of national and international newspapers and other news sources. It also provides international company and industry information and biographical data for many individuals. A video guide to using the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - British Periodicals This link opens in a new windowThis database provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
In Library Search - The Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
First published in 1785, The Times of London is widely considered to be the world's 'newspaper of record'. The Times Digital Archive allows users to search over 200 years of this invaluable historical source.
Not in Library Search - 19th Century British Pamphlets This link opens in a new window19th Century British Pamphlets, created by Research Libraries UK (RLUK), contains the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in research libraries in the United Kingdom.
The digitization of more than 26,000 pamphlets from collections in seven universities in the UK spanning more than one million pages brings together a corpus of primary sources for the study of sociopolitical and economic factors impacting 19th-century Britain. In Library Search - Independent Voices This link opens in a new windowIndependent Voices is a digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Not in Library Search - UK Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new windowThe House of Commons Parliamentary Papers are the working documents of the British government for all areas of social, political, economic, and foreign policy. It covers Bills, Reports of Royal Commissions, Reports of Select Committees, Accounts and Papers and other materials.
Not in Library Search
Below are a selection of databases that can be used to search for subject-specific video content. For a more comprehensive list of video databases please see the Video section of the e-resources A-Z list.
- Chronicle: BBC Northern Ireland’s television news from the 60s and 70s This link opens in a new windowChronicle is a multimedia resource from the BUFVC, providing access to BBC Northern Ireland's television news from the 1960s and 1970s.
Not in Library Search - Box of Broadcasts (BoB) This link opens in a new windowBoB is Learning on Screen’s on demand TV and radio service for education. Our academically-focused system allows staff and students at subscribing institutions to record programmes from over 65 free-to-air channels, and search our extensive archive.
Please note that due to licensing restrictions users can only access this resource from within the UK
Not in Library Search - Kanopy This link opens in a new windowKanopy is a streaming video service for educational institutions. Goldsmiths provide access to a small but growing collection of films.
In Library Search
Below are a selection of databases that can be used to search for biographical information on individual people.
- Dictionary of Irish Biography This link opens in a new window To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography is a collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy. Published in 2009, its coverage is 'from the earliest times to 2002'.
Not in Library Search - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window To access this resource please register for free membership to Senate House Library.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors. It is overseen by academic editors at Oxford University, UK, and published by Oxford University Press.
Not in Library Search
Senate House Library electronic resources
A range of additional electronic resources are available via Senate House Library. Once you have self-registered you can access all electronic resources remotely.
For details on how to self-register for access to Senate House Library, and for more information on electronic resources specific to History, please explore the links below.
Other useful databases
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowCredo Reference is an online database of encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference texts with access to 3,476,088 full text articles in 942 titles from 116 publishers covering a wide range of subjects.
In Library Search - JSTOR Art and Sciences Collections I-XV This link opens in a new windowGoldsmiths members have access to JSTOR Arts & Sciences collections I-XV. The collections provide access to an archival back run of each journal, often dating back to Vol.1. Current journals are subject to a "moving wall" of access between 2 and 5 years behind the most recently published issue.
Arts & Sciences journals archives is one of several JSTOR databases Goldsmiths have access to. See here for a full list.
In Library Search - ProQuest Databases This link opens in a new windowProQuest supply us with over 20 databases. Here they are grouped into subject areas allowing you to search several databases at once. Note that all the databases can also be searched separately and are included in this A-Z list.
Partially in Library Search - Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowThe library subscribes to the 'standard collection.'
In Library Search
