Course resource help for History

Finding journals and journal articles for history ( PDF and Word versions available)

You can use LibrarySearch to find journal articles: type in your topic and then use the search tools menu to limit the format to article. Guide to finding journal articles on a topic using LibrarySearch - PDF.

When you want to find more specialised and specific journal articles, you may want to try using a database. Searching a database will help you find journal articles (and sometimes books, book chapters, reports and other published materials) that are scholarly, academic and peer-reviewed, and suitable for your assignments and research.

Historical Abstracts

Covers the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada), with references to articles, books and other publications from 1950 onwards; contains quite extensive abstracts for most entries; and links to journal articles. EBSCO.

JSTOR

Full text archive including some 19th century journals and over 23,000 nineteenth century British pamphlets on sociopolitical and economic issues.

Bibliography of British and Irish History

Highly recommended, comprehensive database providing bibliographic details of historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth, from 55BC to the present. It lists books, articles in books and provides links to articles in journals.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

An illustrated collection of full text articles providing the life stories of over 55,000 people, ancient and modern, who have shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond.

Early Modern books online

Digital facsimile page images of virtually every book published in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works printed elsewhere in English from 1473 - 1700. This amounts to 97,905 works in their entirety with bibliographic records for a further 8,500. ProQuest.

Academic Search Complete

A full-text database providing full articles, with their accompanying indexing and abstracts, across a wide range of subjects.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

An online archive giving you access to thousands of recorded radio and TV programmes including films. It allows users to record programmes which will then be stored on the database. Log in when prompted with your Brookes username and password.

IBSS - International Bibliography of the Social Sciences

An index to books and journals in the social sciences, including sociology, politics, economics and anthropology.

British Library ETHOS

Search across 350,000+ PhD British theses for free and download / order full text where available.

U.K. Parliamentary Papers

A database giving full-text access to the entire collection of UK parliamentary papers (including Bills, Command Papers and House of Commons Papers) from 1688 to 2003/04

Find all our books and electronic books using LibrarySearch. Search and then select Book from the Search tools menu on the left. You can further limit your search to eBook if you only want electronic books. More information about our electronic books can be found on the Ebooks webpage.

• Video guide to using LibrarySearch to find books
• Finding a book when you know the author/title - PDF
• Finding a book on a topic - PDF
• Local information: a list of resources about Oxford and Oxfordshire

• Module reading lists are a useful way to find the readings for your module. You can find your reading list on the Reading Lists home page by searching your module code, module name, or module leader's name. You can also find your reading list in the top right corner of the module page on Moodle.
• Be sure to check whether an item on your reading list is 'Essential', 'Recommended', or 'Optional' - that will help you prioritise your reading.
• Don't forget - reading lists can also be a good starting point for finding resources for your assignments.

Selecting Internet sources

There is a huge amount of information available on the Internet, from academic research to misinformation and trivia. Anybody can create their own web page and make it available on the Web. You need to be selective in the sites you choose for your academic research and evaluate them just as you would printed sources. The Library has produced a guide which can help you do this:

• Evaluating Web Sources this guide considers the ABC of evaluating web sources.

History gateways/search tools

• Institute of Historical Research

• History Electronic Library -part of the University of Waterloo Electronic Library (UWELib)

• WWW-VL History: Central Catalogue

Specific sites

• Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads

• British History Online -digital library of sources in British history from the Institute of Historical Research and History of Parliament Trust

• British Library: Texts in Context -primary sources in social history, 1600-Present

• Institute of Historical Research

• Internet Women's History Sourcebook

• Map of John Snow's London in 1859

• Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History - promotes historic links between Oxford Brookes University and the Methodist Church through archives, artworks, publications and research.  The Centre also has a blog and photo gallery. 

• A Vision of Britain Through Time - including maps, statistical trends and social commentaries for Britain and its localities, 1801 to 2001.

History of Medicine websites

• Medical Library Association: History of Health Sciences World Wide Web Links

• National Library of Medicine: History of Medicine

• The Alchemy Website and Virtual Library

• British Library: Texts in Context - primary sources in social history, 1600-Present, including works on quackery

• Clendening: History of Medicine Library and Museum

• International Museum of Surgical Science

• People and Discoveries: a Science Odyssey

• Florence Nightingale Museum

• Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences

• Anatomical Waxes by Clemente Susini of the University of Cagliari

Museum/Government sites

• The 24 Hour Museum

• Archives Hub -UK university and college archives

• Directgov -the UK Government Web Site

• UK Official Documents - access to Command Papers, House of Commons Papers and key Departmental Papers from May 2005, with a selection of older papers also available

• UK Parliament - includes many parliamentary publications, information about how parliament works, directory of MPs and details of committees. Select 'Parliamentary Publications and Archives' to access Acts, Bills, Hansards and Consultation Documents

• The National Archives: records of the UK government from Domesday to the present.

• 2015-2016 onwards: These are available for download by Brookes students and staff from the Past Examination Papers collection on RADAR.
• When on RADAR, log in, then select Search, enter the module name or number and limit your search to Examination papers.
• Please note that some exam papers are not available because they have been prohibited from publication. In particular, there are no copies of any exam papers which contain multiple choice questions.