Getting Started
Welcome to your Subject Guide, where you'll find tailored guidance and advice on key library resources.
For the period from the 17th century to the 21st, the Library has numerous resources. The most wide ranging of these is Gale Primary Sources, but other more specific archives such as the New York Times and UK Parliamentary Papers are also available.
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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A cross-searchable platform of eight databases containing digital reproductions of newspapers, periodicals, books and ephemera from the 17th to 20th centuries, including archives of the Illustrated London News, the Listener, Times & Times Literary Supplement (TLS).
The following databases are included in the Gale Primary Source platform.
- British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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The British Library’s archives of searchable facsimiles of regional and national newspapers from the 19th century.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Full text searching of millions of pages of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Primary sources covering British politics, society, and culture, including theatre, music and literature.
- 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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A unique collection of searchable facsimiles of English newspapers, pamphlets, acts of Parliament, and other early news publications from the 1600s and 1700s. Place of publication varies from London and the English provinces, to Scotland, Ireland, Europe, America and India.
- Illustrated London News This link opens in a new window
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A digital archive of the world's first weekly illustrated newspaper from 1842 to 2003, providing contemporary accounts and images of significant British and world events.
- Listener Historical Archive This link opens in a new window
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Complete, searchable digital archive of The Listener, the journal published by the BBC from 1929-1991.
- Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
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The Times newspaper in facsimile from 1785 - 2019.
- TLS Historical Archive This link opens in a new window
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Full text of the Times Literary Supplement from 1902-2013.
Other Primary Resources
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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Periodicals from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century.
- Chronicling America This link opens in a new window
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The US Library of Congress open access digital collection of historical American newspapers.
- Guardian and Observer (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
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Local, regional and national UK news archive from 1791 - 2003. Note: to access current issues, see Pressreader.
- John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new window
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Archive of printed ephemera covering everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- New York Times (The) with Index (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
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Content from the New York Times (1851-2015) with index (1851-1993).
- UK Data Service: Census Support This link opens in a new window
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UK Census Data from 1971, this site provides links to the relevant datasets (registration required).
- UK Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window
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Sessional papers from 1715 to the present, with supplementary material back to 1688.
Most of the LIbrary's print books on History can be found on the third floor at the following locations ("Shelfmarks"):
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History dictionaries & encyclopaedias |
903 |
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History of Europe |
940-949 |
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History of the British Isles |
941 |
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History of Asia; Far East |
950 |
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History of South America |
980 |
Most essential texts, and many more, are available in eBook format and can be found on UR Library Search. The following eBook collections are especially useful for History subjects:
- Bloomsbury Collections This link opens in a new window
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A collection of arts and humanities eBooks, with a strong focus on Philosophy.
- Cambridge Companions This link opens in a new window
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Includes the Companions in: Philosophy, Religion and Culture, Literature and the Classics and Music.
- Cambridge Core This link opens in a new window
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Ebooks and journals in a range of disciplines including science, medicine, humanities, social sciences, economics, history, law, politics and international relations.
- Cambridge Histories This link opens in a new window
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American and British history, economic and scientific history, philosophy, religious studies, theatre studies, warfare and literary studies.
- Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts This link opens in a new window
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An exhaustive resource for historians, theologians, political scientists, and sociologists studying the religious and social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries.
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
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Digital facsimile images of virtually every work printed in English from 1473-1700, searchable by keyword.
- Early European Books This link opens in a new window
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Facsimile images of books printed in Europe before 1701, searchable by keyword.
- Encyclopaedia of Islam This link opens in a new window
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A comprehensive and diverse reference guide to current knowledge of the Islamic World, including details of Islamic history, religion and the global Muslim diaspora.
- Encyclopaedia Judaica 2007 This link opens in a new window
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Overview of Jewish life and knowledge from the Second Temple period to the contemporary State of Israel.
- English Historical Documents This link opens in a new window
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Contains over 5,500 expertly indexed and fully searchable primary documents from 500-1914. - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
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50,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2000.
- Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window
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The Oxford Handbooks series brings together the world’s leading scholars to write articles that survey the current state of scholarship in their field. The articles review the key issues, reveal original arguments and concepts, and set the agenda for new research.
- Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
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This collection of reference works allows cross searching of over 100 dictionaries and encyclopedias published by Oxford University Press.
- Who's Who and Who Was Who This link opens in a new window
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The leading source of up to date information about over 90,000 influential people from all walks of life, worldwide, who have left their mark on British public life.Who Was Who is an archive of people included in previous editions of Who's Who.
Hundreds of historical journals are available in the following digitized collections.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
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A multi-disciplinary database, offering information in most areas of academic study.
- Bibliography of British & Irish History This link opens in a new window
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Provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth, during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present.
- Cambridge Core This link opens in a new window
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Ebooks and journals in a range of disciplines including science, medicine, humanities, social sciences, economics, history, law, politics and international relations.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Hundreds of full text journals and eBooks in the arts, humanities, social sciences and life sciences.
- Open Library of Humanities (Open Access Resource) This link opens in a new window
Covers: classics, modern languages and cultures, philosophy, theology and history, to political theory, sociology, anthropology, film and new media studies, and digital humanities.
- Oxford Journals Archive This link opens in a new window
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Contents of 142 Oxford University Press Journals from their first issue to 1995.
- Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
An archive of hundreds of digitized journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to journal articles, eBooks and reviews in the humanities and social sciences. Spotlight on Project Muse blog post.
- Web Of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new window
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Database comprising Science, Social Science and Arts & Humanities citation indexes.
Highlighted Resources:
- ARTSTOR This link opens in a new window
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A curated collection of over 2.5 million high quality images. The images are all copyright cleared for education and research so can be used in essays, presentations and other assignments. Each image has details of the creator, date, measurements and other useful information. If you set up an account on Artstor you can save images, create groups, and download content. You can even download images directly into PowerPoint presentations with all of the citation information added to the notes field. Images can be a valuable primary source for your studies, and provide additional context around your topic area.
Artstor also provide curated guides on many disciplines e.g. Renaissance Studies. You can find them at: https://artstor.libguides.com/artstoracrossdisciplines. - Europeana This link opens in a new window
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Access to digitised books, music, and artworks from Europe's museums, libraries, and archives.
- John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new window
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The John Johnson Collection is widely recognised as one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world and generally regarded as the most significant single collection of ephemera in the UK. It contains of five different categories of information:
Nineteenth-Century Entertainment - which falls into two distinct groups: theatre material and non-theatrical entertainment material..
The Booktrade - examples include publishing material (e.g. prospectuses of books and journals) and bookplates.
Popular Prints - these items provide an invaluable record of locations and landscapes, architecture, popular tastes and appetites for artistic works and topography.
Crime, Murders, and Executions - a mixture of single sheets and pamphlets that afford unique insights into the judicial system and its punishments.
Advertising - provide an invaluable insight into the development of consumerism. - BFI Player for Higher Education This link opens in a new window
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The British Film Institute's curated streaming service for higher education, with a focus on British and European independent films. Note: after logging in with your Roehampton email address, you need to create a personal user account for access. You may watch content on personal devices or in class, but BFI Player is not licenced for public screenings.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
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Streams thousands of films, documentaries and training videos across a wide range of subjects. Note: Click 'Log in to Roehampton' on the left side of the screen to gain access. Please note: BBC programmes may be available via Roehampton Online Broadcasts (ROB).
- ROB (Roehampton Online Broadcasts) This link opens in a new window
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Record and stream freeview TV and radio programmes for educational use, create clips and playlists, and access the archive of recorded programmes including BBC and Shakespeare Archives. ROB is managed by AVR, for assistance contact: avr@roehampton.ac.uk.
- VADS: Visual Arts Data Service (Open Access Resource) This link opens in a new window
Over 140,000 images from over 300 art collections, free for educational use.
Foyle Special Collections & Archives
The University's Foyle Special Collections & Archives consist of rare books, original documents and artefacts which support various teaching and research areas of the University of Roehampton. The collections relate to Friedrich Froebel and the kindergarten, Froebel College, Children's Literature and the children’s book author Richmal Crompton, Dance, and to a number of other areas including Religious Studies.
The Library also subscribes to number of large archive collections that are not freely available online. These can be found on the other pages in this guide.
- Special Collections & ArchivesThe University's Special Collections & Archives homepage.
- Digital Archives & Research ResourcesThis pages contains links to useful archives and digital collections, e.g. The National Archives, The British Library Digital Collections, Archive Hub, etc.
It also contains a selection of digital content from the University's own collections, includes historical photographs, images of archival material as well as publication fragments (which can be made available to individuals upon request), and the Roehampton Digital Collections a freely available digital library of key texts for the Children's Literature Collection and the Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies.
Other libraries, archives and institutions
- British Library Catalogues & CollectionsSearch archives, manuscripts, sound and moving image collections, along with books and journals published in the UK since 1950.
- Institute of Historical Research list of open access resourcesTo help those writing dissertations and undertaking research, the IHR are collecting links to accessible online materials, e.g. Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook. This listing is a work in progress.