Category Archives: Databases

By Subject, Databases, Department of History, Media Arts, Politics and International Relations

MediaHub

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MediaHub provides a single search point for all the images and films from the collections of Education Image Gallery, Film and Sound Online, NewsFilm Online plus other services including the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) Image Bank.

You can find it in the Databases A-Z, under M.

Explore by Collection to see all of the video and image collections, including ITV News archives from 1953 – 2007; Channel 4 News archives from 1982 – 2007; Channel 5 News archives from 1997 – 2004; Gaumont Graphic British News from 1920 – 1934.

MediaHub Collections

 

Anything with the JISC MediaHub logo has been cleared for use in education and teaching, but MediaHub also searches lots of external collections too – these will be clearly marked with information for re-use.

As it’s Library Loves Art month, we’re particularly excited by the Fitzwilliam Museum collections in Cambridge. “Images covering a wide range of pictorial content drawn from the rich, diverse and internationally significant collections of The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, including major artists such as Canaletto, J.M.W. Turner, George Stubbs and John Constable. Every image is tagged by geographical location and a date or period.”

Self-portrait, with the Colosseum, Rome. Maarten van Heemskerck. 1553. The Fitzwilliam Museum
Self-portrait, with the Colosseum, Rome. Maarten van Heemskerck. 1553. The Fitzwilliam Museum

 

Search Techniques

MediaHub defaults to an OR search, so the system will bring back media containing any of the keywords you search for. e.g. vietnam war brings back results with ‘vietnam’, ‘war’, or both

To make sure that your results contain all of the words you search for, use +. e.g. +vietnam +war brings back results with both ‘vietnam and war’

To exclude one particular word, use -. e.g. asia -korea brings back results with asia, but none with korea.

You can use the simple search box at the top of the page, and access many more options by selecting ‘Advanced Search‘.

Sharing

Images and videos can be saved and downloaded in a number of formats, and you can access a permanent link to the media so that it can be shared.

More Information

By Subject, Databases, Media Arts

British Pathé online

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Charles Pathé (1863-1957) was a pioneer of the moving image, who founded a company with his three brothers in Paris in 1896.  A London branch was established in 1902, and by 1910 it was producing the Pathé Gazette twice a week for the country’s growing number of cinemas.  The company had many other interests, including cinema equipment, films and audio recordings, but it was best known for its news services.

Pathé news continued to be produced till 1970, so it recorded the world in the twentieth century through two world wars, revolutions and the Great Depression to the postwar years, the Iron Curtain and decolonisation.  Over 90,000 clips covering a vast range of subjects have now been made available on the website http://www.britishpathe.com/

These clips are free for the public to stream and view.  They contain a fairly obtrusive copyright statement across the foot of the screen, but are still fascinating and enjoyable. They are potentially a treasure trove for anyone interested in social history.

British Pathé home page

The home page (above) features a different clip each week.  When this blog was written, the week of the Australian Open tennis championship, it was a clip of Fred Perry winning that tournament in 1934.

There is a simple search engine, and the collection can be searched in full or under broad categories. A general search for “Library” (I know, but I’m a librarian . . . ) produced a video of (very quiet) activity in the long lost British Museum Library Round Reading Room in 1947, among many other results.

All rights to the material remain with the company,  this is not public domain material. Downloading clips for re-use has to be paid for, usually £30 to £40 per clip according to length. However, anyone can create a free user account, which then lets you mark your favourite clips to return to.  There is no limit to the number of times you can stream a clip online.

Adrian Machiraju

By Subject, Databases, Library Loves

JSTOR

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JSTOR (short for Journal Storage) is a major source of journals for the Arts and Humanities. If you are studying in these areas you will often find that academic journal articles you need are here.

Login using the link on the Databases A-Z page.

If you are off campus you can use the login above and enter your Username and Password or use the VPN (More information here).

What is JSTOR?
•JSTOR is a research and teaching platform for the academic community to publish, discover, and preserve scholarly content.
• JSTOR includes over 1,400 leading academic journals and primary source materials valuable for academic work, including the most current issues of 174 journals.
• The entire archive is full-text searchable, includes images and multi-media files, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.
• Founded in 1995, JSTOR is a service of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization.

JSTOR have PDF guide which is a useful quick reference on how to do things.

How to do a basic search

When you first log into JSTOR, you will see the Basic Search box.

Enter your keywords and click the Search button.

How to do an advanced search

To get to Advanced Search, click the Search pull-down in the menu at the top and select Advanced Search.

You can enter your keywords and combine them with AND, OR and NOT, quotation marks, and parentheses, just as you would in Basic Search.

  1. Use the pull-down menu to the left of the search box to select AND, OR or NOT
  2. Include links to external content – includes search results that have full-text content in another database or on the web. You can leave this option selected but it might lead to things we don’t have access for.
    Include only content I can access – eliminates search results with no full-text in JSTOR.
  3. Item Type allows you to narrow do your search by whether you want an article, an ebook, a pamphlet, etc.
  4. Date Range allows you to limit your search to items that were published in a certain time period
  5. Check off the disciplines (subject areas) that you want to search down at the bottom of the Advanced Search page.
  6. Language lets you restrict your search to only documents in English (or another language).

There are also the following short videos to help you:

How to search:

This video shows how to use the Advanced Search feature:

 

Keeping up to date:

By Subject, Databases, Social Care Online, Social Work

Social Care Online – New Interface

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Social Care Online is provided by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and is the UK’s largest database of information on all aspects of social care and social work.  Content includes legislation, government documents, practice and guidance, systematic reviews, research briefings, UK grey literature, digital media, books, text books and journal articles.  If you have been using Social Care Online for your research be aware that the old interface will no longer be available from the new year, instead you will need to search the new Social Care Online beta version.

How do I access Social Care Online?

Under E-Resources on the Social Work subject guide

OR

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

2. Go to S

3. Select Social Care Online

 

Searching on a topic

Use the standard search box to search for your topic and then filter the results by using the options on the left hand side.

 

Advanced search

To get access to advanced search features, save searches and export results you will need to first register with Social Care Online.  Once you have done this you will need to login to start searching.

The advanced search allows you to select multiple keywords which you can combine with the search operators AND, OR and NOT in the following fields:

  • Title
  • Author
  • Editor
  • Publisher
  • Publication Year
  • Subject terms
  • Location
  • Abstract
By Subject, Databases, Department of History, English Literature

JISC Historic Books

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JISC Historic Books is a database that provides access to scans of historic editions of books:

What does it contain?

BL 19th Century: Over 65, 000 recently digitised first editions from the British Library’s 19th century collection, comprising over 25 million pages of previously rare and inaccessible titles.

ECCO: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) is a digital collection of more than 180,000 titles published in Great Britain and its colonies during the eighteenth century.

EEBO: Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains the scanned images, and plain text digital versions where available, of over 125,000 books published in English up to 1700.

Content from all three collections can be searched at once, or individual collections can be selected and browsed.

How to access the resource:

– Under E-resources on the English and Drama & Theatre subject guides.

OR

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

2. Go to J

3. Select JISC Historic Books

Help:

The Library has put together a basic video tutorial here:

And the website has its own Quick Reference Guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Subject, Databases, Drama and Theatre, English Literature

The Shakespeare Collection Online

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The Shakespeare Collection is an extensive collection including e-books of the most recent Arden Shakespeare editions, other editions and adaptations of Shakespeare’s works, other works published during Shakespeare’s time, prompt books, theatrical diaries, criticism, reviews, images, and reference materials. It is a great place to begin studying Shakespeare, and has lots of clever features.

How to access:

– Under E-resources on the English and Drama & Theatre subject guides.

OR

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

2. Go to S

3. Select Shakespeare Collection

Searching for a play

Use the basic search to find texts of Shakespeare’s plays:

shakespearecollection basic search

Under Texts – Arden editions select they play you are interested in and you can read the full text. Click on View Notes to read the Arden notes on the text.

shakespearecollection viewnotes

Comparing texts

You can also compare historical editions of texts with the recent Arden edition.

To compare the first known editions of Hamlet (1603 & 1604 Quartos) and the modern, Arden edition of the play:

  1. Open The Shakespeare Collection and go to the basic search page.
  2. Enter “Hamlet”, select the “Keyword” radio button, and click on the search button.
  3. Under the Arden tab, mark the Arden edition of Hamlet.
  4. Under the Historical tab, mark the second and third items (Quarto 1 and Quarto 2).
  5. Open Quarto 1 and click on the “Compare Documents” link.
  6. Scroll around in the left window to get a good view of the play.
  7. In the right window, open the Arden edition of the play.
  8. Scroll and compare the two versions.
  9. In the Arden edition, select “View Notes” for more information about the scene.
  10. In the top right corner of the right screen, select “Compare Another”.
  11. Open the 1604-1605 edition of the play.
  12. Page forward to get to the start of the play.

Searching for a quotation

You can use the Basic Search to find a quotation, or instances of a word or phrase.

1. Type the quotation into the search bar, and select the “Entire Document” radio button. Click Search.

shakespearecollection quotationsearch

2. Choose “First Relevant Scene”. The quotation you searched for will be displayed in red.
3. Choose the “Next” button to skip to the next instance of the word/quotation.

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!

Archives, Databases, Library Loves

Finding Archives in the UK

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The UKs archival collections are an incredibly rich resource and there are a significant number of tools online to help you discover and access them.  However, navigating these resources can sometimes be a bit tricky, because there is no national discovery service for archives, instead there are a number of regional and thematic archival networks which contain the descriptions of different types of collection.  The purpose of this blog post is to highlight all the main tools that are available to help users find archives.

The best place to start is the National Register of Archives (NRA).  The NRA contains information on the nature and location of manuscripts and historical records that relate to British history. It is structured around the creators of the records and contains information about records that have been created by some 53,000 individuals, 9,000 families, 32,000 businesses and 116,000 organisations.  The entries in the NRA range from major historical figures such as Winston Churchill (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P5659) to individuals who left behind records which give an interesting insight in day-to-day life in the past, such as the diaries of Daniel Duck, a Clergyman from North Yorkshire whose 10 volumes of diaries cover the period 1785 to 1824 (with some gaps) – http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P50679.

The descriptions in the NRA tend to be fairly brief; however they also contain links to fuller descriptions, either in other archival networks, or in an archive’s own catalogue.  They also contain links, where relevant, to an individual’s biography on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  As an archival finding aid the NRA is unrivalled in its comprehensiveness and variety, containing entries from archives across the world.

The sister database to the NRA is ARCHON – http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/.  If you are interested in visiting an archive in a region then ARCHON is probably the best place to start.  It allows you to view all the archives in a particular area, and see further information on their collections – with both links to the NRA and other archival networks.

A2A – http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/ – is another archival database that is also maintained by The National Archives.  The A2A database contains a significant number of catalogues of local record offices in England and Wales.  While the NRA contains summary descriptions of records held at a large number of archives, A2A has far more detailed catalogues from a more limited number of institutions – it is therefore worthwhile searching both, if you are looking for something specific.

A number of other important archival networks also exist, providing the means of searching archives in a particular region, or a particular sector.

The Archives Hub (http://archiveshub.ac.uk/) and AIM25 (http://www.aim25.ac.uk/) are the two archival networks for University archives.  Royal Holloway’s archival collections are available through both services.

AIM25 contains summary descriptions of collections held by a rich variety of archives in the London area.  As well as University archives it also contains information on the holdings of a number of other London institutions which have archival collections, such as the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Geographical Society.

Archives Hub contains collection level descriptions of the records held by 222 Universities and Colleges across the UK.

Archives Network Wales (http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/) is the archival network for Wales, containing information about more than 7,000 collections of historical records in the holdings of 21 archives in Wales.

SCAN (http://www.scan.org.uk/) is the Scottish archival network, which contains catalogues of collections from 52 repositories in Scotland, ranging from the National Archives of Scotland and Edinburgh University Special Collections to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

In addition to the archival networks the national institutions also hold incredibly extensive collections of archives and are mainly based in London, which makes visiting fairly straightforward.  The most significant are:

The National Archives – Their Discovery Service (http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI) is the best place to start if you are interested in the records of central government .

The British Library – Has an incredibly rich collection of archives and manuscripts, searchable through their catalogue of archives and manuscripts (http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=IAMS_VU2)

Amy Warner, Associate Director (E-Strategy and Technical Services)

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.