Tag Archives: librarylovesresources

Archives, By Subject, Department of History, Drama and Theatre

RHUL’s Archive Collections

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RHC PH/207/9
Students in a classroom at Royal Holloway College 1899

As Library Loves… Archives month draws to a close this post will tell you a bit about the collections we hold here at Royal Holloway. If you haven’t made it to one of our Explore Your Archive sessions you may still be in the dark as to what we actually have. The collections can be split into two main groups: institutional records and special collections.

 

Institutional Records

These are records which have been created by RHUL or its predecessors.  In the 1980s Royal Holloway and Bedford Colleges merged together to form RHUL and we have the records of both the Colleges in the archives. Bedford College was the first to open (in 1849 in central London) and was the first higher education college for women in the country. Royal Holloway followed a few years later and was opened by Queen Victoria in 1886. Both collections hold records from the opening of the Colleges including foundation deeds and trust documents as well as photographs, committee minutes, papers of student societies, student and staff records, College and student publications among many other things!

We also continue to collect records from the College today so that future researchers can look back at how the College operates now. This newer material isn’t always catalogued – it’s an ongoing process! So if you want to look at something which you can’t find in the catalogue get in touch and we can see if we have it.

 

Special Collections

Different repositories use the term ‘special collection’ to mean different things (something which puzzled me a lot when I first started working in archives!) but here we call any collection that has been created/collected outside the College and then donated to us a special collection. Our special collections include rare book collections as well as archives but I’m just going to focus on the archive special collections in this post.

Our main collecting area for special collections is theatre archives. We have three collections from theatre companies – Gay Sweatshop, Half Moon and Red Shift. All three contain similar records relating to the running of the company and the productions they put on. This includes administrative and financial records, scripts, promotional material (including flyers and posters) and photographs of productions. We also have two ephemera collections: the Coton collection which contains material relating to ballet and other forms of dance including photographs, postcards and programmes; and the Roy Waters collection which is the largest of our theatre collections. Roy Waters was a theatre enthusiast who spend 40 years of his life collecting anything and everything to do with the theatre. The collection is hugely varied and includes postcards, posters, playbills, programmes, autographed letters from famous actors and actresses and much much more!

We also have the Alfred Sherman papers which cover Sherman’s role as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher and the Anselm Hughes collection which are the personal and research papers of a liturgical music scholar.

 

You can find out more about all of our collections through our website: www.rhul.ac.uk/archives which also has a link to the online catalogue and our contact details.

 

If you don’t think our collections would be of use to you in your research but would like to find other collections which would be take a look at our previous blog about finding archives in the UK: http://libraryblog.rhul.ac.uk/2013/11/14/finding-archives-uk/

Annabel Gill, College Archivist

By Subject, Databases, Drama and Theatre

Drama Online

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Drama Online contains hundreds of plays from some of the very earliest Greek works right up to the present day. In addition there are background and contextual works on playwrights, theatre movements, genres, practitioners and periods, as well as scholarly monographs, biographies, practical books on acting and stage craft, and over five hundred theatre production stills from the Victoria and Albert Museum Performance collection.

How to access it:

Go to the Drama Subject Guide and look under E-resources.

OR

1. Go to the Databases A-Z guide on the library subject guides.

2. Go to D

3. Select Drama Online

 

Use the search bar at the top of the page to search for a play, a playwright, genre, or period – or use the links below to browse the collection.

DramaOnlinesearch

Plays: this section contains full texts of plays to read online or download.
Playwrights & Practitioners: an alphabetical list of playwrights whose biographies and works you can read in the database.
Genres: a list of different genres, and links to plays in that genre.
Periods: a list of time periods, and links to plays in those periods.
Context & Criticism: access to books on drama, theatre, playwriting.
Theatre Craft: access to books on the production and acting.

The collection will continue to grow throughout the year. For the list of titles that will be included throughout 2013, visit the Content List.

Using the database

When you are reading a play, you can hover over the text to see which page of the printed edition you are on, and where a small speechbubble appears, you can read any notes on the text

If you click on a playwright, on the right of the screen are any plays you can read, and on the left of the screen is a short biography.

dramaonline playwright

Once you have selected a genre, or period, plays in that category appear on the right of the screen, and information on the period or genre appears on the left.

dramaonline genre

You can use this to find new writers, or new movements you may be interested in.

Play Tools include a Character Grid to help you view where characters appear and with whom they interact in the play. You can select particular characters and chart their appearances through the play – or use the Words and Speeches tool to see a precise word count.

dramaonline playtools

By Subject, Databases, English Literature

Oxford English Dictionary

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The Oxford English Dictionary is the online version of the 20 volume dictionary, containing 60,000 words and charting the course of the English language over the past 1000 years. The online version is easier to search than the print, contains more words, and can do lots of interesting stuff!

How to access:

– Under Reference Resources in the E-resources tab on your Subject Guide

OR

1. Go to The Databases A-Z guide on the library subject guides.

2. Go to O

3. Select Oxford English Dictionary

For a really good introduction to searching, and help understanding the interface, watch this video (best viewed fullscreen)

If you want to find out where words came from, click on the links on the quotations and you can find out

  • which other words that title contributed to English
  • when it was first, and subsequently, used
  • links to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for more information on the contributor/author
  • links to the RHUL Library catalogue

Advanced Search:

This is a very powerful search that combines all of the search functionalities available.

For example: you could combine terms, usage, dates etc to find out slang terms in 1990s, or 1690s search slang in full text + date of entry 1990-2000/1690-1700

 

Using Wildcards and the Advanced Search, or, Using the OED to solve crossword puzzles:

Using Timelines

The timelines are a way of visualising when words came into English language usage. They can be found from the OED homepage.

Although the timeline defaults to all words in the dictionary, you can refine it to subject/category

OED advanced

By region i.e. words used in an area

OEd - region

Or by origin i.e. where words came from

OED-origin

Follow the blog for essays on English Language, and try the quizzes– post your results in the comments below!

Databases, Journals

ScienceDirect

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ScienceDirect is one of our major databases. It contains thousands of Full text journal articles. Beyond its core collection of Science and Life Science titles, ScienceDirect also includes many Economic and Social Sciences and a few Arts and Humanities titles. Most subscriptions to titles go back to at least 1995 but in many cases we have purchased backfiles which take us back further.

Important Note: We don’t subscribe to every journal contained in ScienceDirect. If you find something we don’t subscribe to follow these steps to finding journal articles.

ScienceDirect:

 

There are several help videos available on the ScienceDirect help pages.

Searching ScienceDirect

You can either use the Quick Search bar located on the top of every page with a navigation bar, or use the Advanced search button for a more enhanced search.

For Quick Search:

1. Enter your search term(s) in one or more of the following fields

  • All fields
  • Author
  • Journal/book title
  • Volume
  • Issue
  • Page

2. Click or press Enter to begin your search and display your article search results.

For Advanced Searching:

1. From the ScienceDirect homepage, click the Search button on the navigation bar.
The search page will open.
2. The search page offers several different search forms, including: All Sources, Journals, Books, and Reference Works, select your preferred search form
4. Enter your search terms and use the pre-defined Advanced Search fields to further refine your search. The search fields include:

  • Abstract, Title, Keywords
  • Authors
  • Specific Author
  • Source Title
  • Title
  • Keywords
  • Abstract
  • References
  • ISSN
  • ISBN
  • Affiliation
  • Full Text
  • All Fields

Note: The available Advanced Search fields vary depending on the type of content you are searching.

5. Search a specific publication type. Example: Use the Advanced Journals search form to search only journals or only books.
6. If desired, limit your search in the following ways:

  • document type
  • date
  • subject

7. Click or press Enter to begin your search and display your article search results.

Note: You can further refine, edit, and save your search, in addition to setting up search alerts from your results page.

Databases

OECD iLibrary

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The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD publishes and collects statistics on a wide range of social and economic issues, including agriculture, competition, corruption, education, employment, energy, globalisation, health, international migration, sustainable development, trade, technology, transport, etc.
OECD iLibrary contains all the publications and datasets released by OECD since 1998 , International Energy Agency (IEA), Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), OECD Development Centre, PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), and International Transport Forum (ITF) since 1998 – over 1 000 journal issues, 2 900 working papers, 2 500 multi-lingual summaries, 6 200 e-book titles, 14 000 tables and graphs, 21 000 chapters and articles, and 390 complete databases with more than 4 billion data points. It also includes OECD statistical databases that you can use to build your own tables. Some databases provide data as far back as 1960.

 

To Access OECD iLibrary:
1. Go to The Databases A-Z guide on the library subject guides.
2. Go to O
3. Select OECD iLibrary

This video introduces OECD iLibrary:

Quick Search

Enter some terms into the quick SEARCH field to find related content.
1 on the homepage of OECD iLibrary, or
2 on the top of each page of OECD iLibrary.
The quick search function scans titles, abstracts, authors, ISBNs/ISSNs/DOIs, tables of contents and countries.
Note: this field will not search full-text content – see Advanced Search.

Advanced Search
Enter one term or more into the Option fields and use AND, OR, NOT to connect the fields appropriately. If desired, define the search further using other options on the page: date range, content language, imprint, thematic
collection, country or sort order.

Statistics

Databases:

– Click on “OECD.Stat” to access all dynamic databases available from the OECD allowing experienced users to make cross-database queries.
– Click on a specific title to access a unique view of the selected database, including options for creating customized tables, a data citation tool and
links to related content.

Key tables:

– Click on “Country tables” to view a selection of country-based key statistics in HTML, XLS and PDF formats.
– Click on a key table set to view a selection organised by theme. The tables are accessible in HTML, XLS and PDF formats.
Books:
– Click on “OECD Factbook” to access a unique cross-section of key statistics as tables and graphs from the OECD accompanied by a brief
introduction, definitions, notes on comparability, long-term trends and sources.
– Click on a publication title to access the homepage of a statistical periodical, book series or annual/outlook.

Databases, Newspapers

Nexis

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Nexis is a comprehensive newspaper database, updated daily, providing full text access to all UK national newspapers, plus regional newspapers, international news providers and a number of trade journals and magazines. Most titles have a twenty year archive. UK newspaper titles include:

  • Financial Times
  • Daily Mail / Mail on Sunday
  • Independent / Independent on Sunday
  • Guardian / Observer
  • Daily Telegraph / Sunday Telegraph
  • Daily Mirror / Sunday Mirror
  • London Evening Standard
  • The Scotsman / Scotland on Sunday

In addition, 2300 international news providers are covered including The International Herald Tribune, The New Yorker, USA Today, India Today and the Japan Times and over 500 UK regional newspapers are also covered.

You can also find::

  • Company Information
  • Industry Information
  • Country Information
  • Biographies

To search these headings select them from the menu at the top of the page.

To Access Nexis:

Select Nexis from the Databases A-Z list or select the link from your subject guides where it appears.

From the first page, click to accept the Terms and Conditions to proceed to the database.

Browsing Nexis

To see a list of all UK newspapers covered by Nexis:

  • Select the Sources tab (at the top left of the screen)
  • From the tabs beneath this select Browse Sources
  • Change Filter by country to the country you are interested in (e.g. United Kingdom).
  • Select the News folder under publication type
  • Select the Newspapers folder.
  • A list of titles will now appear, and you can search these individually or in groups.

Searching Nexis

nexis 5

To search for articles, first check that you have the Search and News tabs selected from the options in the top left of the screen.

Enter your keywords into the search box and select a time period. Using In the Headline orMajor Mentions options from the drop-down menu ensures that your hits will be more relevant. This is useful for when your search is likely to retrieve a great number of articles.

The list of results displayed gives only brief details. To view the full article, click on the highlighted title of the article.

As well as newspaper articles you can use Nexis to gather information about a company, industry, country and people.

How to find articles from a particular publication

  1. Open the News search form.
  2. Select a source from the Sources drop-down list. For example, Irish Publications.
    Note:
    • If the source you require is not included in the list, click on More sources. To select a source, refer to the Browse Sources Page for instructions.
    • If you wish to edit the list of sources, click on Edit this Source List. Then refer to the Edit Sources Page for instructions.
  3. Select a date range in Specify date. For example, Previous year.
  4. Click on Search to retrieve your results.

Find out more about Nexis here:

Using the Biographies Feature in Nexis

 

 

By Subject, Databases, School of Management

Using Key Note to find Market Research reports

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To Access Key Note

  1. Go to the library website: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/library 
  2. Select the Subject Guides
  3. Select the Databases A-Z tab 
  4. Select K
  5. Scroll down to find Key Note and click on the link
  6. Off campus: Enter your College username and password and click Login

Keynote

 

Select Market Research from the left hand menu.

The following options appear:

Key note market research

  •  Overview: Explains more about Key Note
  • A-Z Reports: Provides an A-Z list of all market reports
  • Market Sectors: Lists categories of reports so that you can browse by sector. For example, look under the category ‘Clothing and Personal Goods’ to find a report on ‘Sportswear’.

Key note search
Quick Search: You can also search by
keyword in the search box at the top right of
the screen. Your search will find any report
that mentions your keyword.

Key Note Report Search

 

Select Advanced Search beneath the search box for a number of options to narrow your search, such as by sector or date published. You can also search within a specific report by typing the name of the report in the ‘Report title’ box and entering your search words in the
‘Full text search’ box.

 

 

Results will be displayed as a list of report titles. You can sort results alphabetically by clicking Report Title, by date by clicking Date or by type by clicking Report Type. I

f you are browsing the A-Z list, the most recent report for each title will be shown.

Click the Key not button button to view older reports with the same title.

To view a report, click on the report title.

If you are searching by keyword, click the Key not button button to view the specific chapter where your keyword(s) appear.

Keywords will be highlighted in yellow.

Click on the main report title to go to the first page of the report, or click the chapter heading to go directly to the chapter section.

To view the report in full, go to the icons at the top right of the report:
Key note icons
To return to the results list when viewing a chapter or report click:

Key note search results

 

To save or print a report, click on the PDF icon in the top-right to open as a PDF. Save the whole PDF or print specific chapters.

By Subject, Databases, School of Management

Key Note

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Have you seen our great new resource? It’s called Key Note and it provides market reports and company information. Even if you don’t think this resource is relevant to your studies please read on because the information contained within it could help you in that all important job search.

KeynoteResearch that works for you…

  • Analyse industry leaders
  • Substantiate business plans, marketing ideas and concepts
  • Examine current issues, market trends/developments, market size, competitive structure and marketing activity
  • Focus on a specific target market using exclusive buying behaviour and consumer research
  • Support business plans/strategies utilising Key Note’s market forecasts
  • Discover a market’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT Analysis)
  • Assess how trends in politics, the economy, society and technology are having an impact on a specific market (PEST analysis)

Keynote have a helpful guide to how to use the resource which we recommend people look at.

How to use Key Note to get a job

  • Research companies in the industry or region you want to work in
  • Incorporate a fact or figure from researching a company or organisation when responding to, or asking a question at, a job interview.