Welcome to the History subject page. Here you will find useful information on library resources. To search for information in your subject area, you can use LibrarySearch|. If you would like to look at online resources specific to your subject area, use our E-resources for History|.
To find material on your reading lists, you can also use the Library catalogue| (search by author & title of the book, or the title of the journal). See the Getting Started Handbook for a step by step guide or watch our Video Tutorials|.
Click on 'Where to find books in the library' (below) to see the physical location of collections relevant to History.
If you have any questions on our resources and services, please see the Library FAQs| or contact the main Library Help Desk or the Information Consultant for History (contact details at the top right of this page).
When researching your assignment or dissertation, LibrarySearch| is a good starting point to find articles from journals, reviews, newspapers plus books & book chapters. LibrarySearch carries out a single search across a wide range of our e-resources (including the Library Catalogue|).
Focus your search
Due to the wide covereage of LibrarySearch| you may sometimes find that the number of results returned is very high, even after modifying your search terms. It may be more useful to search a particular e-resource that is directly relevant to your subject or topic.
Below are a selection of resources useful for finding journal articles (more services are listed on the E-resources webpages|):
Full text services (ejournals & ebooks):
JSTOR| - full-text articles from back issues of scholarly journals with a wide coverage of arts & humanities titles.
Project MUSE| - full-text articles from over 300 humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 120 scholarly publishers.
British History Online| - key primary and secondary sources for the history of the British Isles
Cambridge Histories Online| - e-books from the Cambridge Histories series covering a range American History to History of the Book, including Economic History, British History, Philosophy, Language and Literature.
Cambridge Companions Online| - comprises the Cambridge companions in Literature and Classics and the Cambridge companions in Philosophy, Religion and Culture.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)| - a database of texts and images of books in the English language printed between 1475 and 1700.
Eighteenth Century Collection Online (EECO)| - provides access to the digital images of every page of 150,000 books published during the 18th Century.
Internet History Sourcebook| - a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented for educational use, particular useful for 20th century world history.
ACLS Humanities Ebooks| - an online, fully searchable collection of high-quality books in the Humanities, recommended and reviewed by scholars.
Medieval Sourcesonline| - developed from the Manchester University Press Medieval Sources series, this provides the full text of all of the books in the series.
Indexes of published articles (these may not provide links to full text):
Web of Knowledge| (WoK) - an index of journal articles and book reviews across a range of subjects, and indexes of papers read at major international conferences.
Below is a selection of priimary sources, reference material (e.g. encyclopedia, language dictionaries, biographical dictionaries, companions) and multimedia resources (e.g. image collections, film and sound archives, interactive tools) that are revelvant to History. Many more resources can be found on the E-resources webpages (also see the History resources guide|):
Primary sources (e-resources)
British History
British History Online| - a digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles.
Connected Histories| - A range of digital history sources covering 1500-1900 Britain.
Parliamentary papers
Parliament rolls of medieval England| – contains the full text (Latin, Anglo-Norman, Middle English) and facing translation of the parliament rolls from 1272-1504.
British History Online| - Calendar of State Papers from 1547-1775.
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers|- contains parliamentary papers published from 1715 to the present.
Letters, diaries and ephemera
British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries| - includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters. The collection includes primary materials from 1558-1945.
John Johnson Collection of printed Ephemera| – material from the most important collection of ephemera in the UK, covering the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.
Reference material (e-resources)
If you need to find factual or biographical reference information, there are a number of resources that are relevant to History.
New Pauly Online| - one of the most complete and authoritative modern encyclopedia of the ancient world. In nearly 20,000 entries it covers two thousand years of history and culture of Greco-Roman Antiquity and the reception of this in the two thousand years that followed.
Oxford Reference Online| - over 100 general reference works, language dictionaries and subject dictionaries covering all subject areas. See their History title list.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography| - an illustrated collection of over 57,000 specially written biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past, from the fourth century BC to the year 2000.
Multimedia e-resources
There is a wide range of services available that allow to you search for images, videos & sounds clips. Some will allow you to download the material, other only allow you to view within their own interface. Below are some resources relevant to History.
Perseus Digital Library| - provides online content covering history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world, including primary and secondary texts, images, an interactive atlas and an encyclopedia.
Times Digital Archive| - fully searchable full text of 200 years of articles from The Times newspaper, from 1785-1985.
Box of Broacasts (BOB)| - a recording and media archive service which allows you to record programmes scheduled for broadcast, and search for & watch programmes from the archive. Users can also create clips & compile playlists. The archive currently offers over 45,000 TV and radio programmes covering all genres.
MediaHub| - a single search point for all the images and films from the collections of Education Image Gallery, Film and Sound Online, NewsFilm Online.
The Library provides introductory and research methods training to the Department for new and existing Undergraduates, and taught and research Postgraduates. You will be notified of dates and locations of these sessions well in advance of the training.
The training sessions will help you to:
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find material on your reading lists
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search for books and journal articles to support your essays and assigments
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understand referencing and create well structured bibliographies
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use online tools and software to organise your readings and search results
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use advanced research methods for dissertations & PhD level research
1st Year Undergraduate training: Library & Information Skills
The Department will ask you to sign up to one of the sessions below. The sign up forms will be on the Department notice boards by then end of Welcome Week.
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Session 1: Mon 1st October 14.00 to 15.00 in the HITT Lab, Horton Building
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Session 2: Tues 2nd October 12.00 to 13.00 in the CBT Lab, MX35, Moore Annex
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Session 3: Tues 2nd October 15.00 to 16.00 in the HITT Lab, Horton Building
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Session 4: Weds 3rd October 10.00 to 11.00 in the HITT Lab, Horton Building
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Session 5: Thurs 4th October 14.00 to 15.00 in the CBT Lab, MX35, Moore Annex
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Session 6: Fri 5th October 10.00 to 11.00 in the Bourne Yorkon PC Lab, Bourne Annex
Training sessions open to all RHUL students - Library & Information Skills Training|:
As part of the Student IT Training Programmme|, the Library also provides a range of free Information Skills training courses that any student or researcher can sign-up for, from introductory sessions on using e-resources to more advanced research & information skills for dissertations & managing references using RefWorks or Endnote.
Postgraduate Researchers - Library & Information Skills Training:
The library will provide one to one training sessions for Postgraduate Researchers based on your research needs. Please contact the Information Consultant for your subject area (details above) to arrange an appointment for training (or sign up for one the Libary & Information Skills Training sessions - see above).
Individual support and 1 to 1 training
If you would like help with any of our services from getting started using the library's resources, to help with using the library's online resources for researching your essays, projects & dissertations, then please contact the Information Consultant for your subject area (details above) to arrange an appointment for training (or sign up for one the Libary & Information Skills Training sessions - see above).