Subject Guides: History of Art: Resources

Primary source texts

Books can be a great place to start your reading around a topic.

History of Art books are located in the L-LL section on the second floor of the JB Morrell Library. Many books will also be available online as e-books. Look for the links in YorSearch, under the View It section of each book.

Key History of Art E-Book Collections

ACLS Humanities E-Book
A curated collection of over 5,400 full text ebooks covering a broad range of subjects in the humanities. The titles are recommended by scholars and the learned societies of the American Council of Learned Societies and are offered in collaboration with over 120 contributing publishers.

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Brepols Miscellanea Online - Essays in Medieval Studies
The full text of over 300 miscellany volumes with over 5,000 essays covering a wide range of subject areas in Medieval Studies.

The Library currently has access to volumes published between 1998 and 2012.
Cambridge Histories Online
The full-text of volumes from the Cambridge Histories series. The volumes are grouped into topics covering: American History; British History; Economic History; General History; History of Science; History of the Book; Language and Linguistics; Literary Studies; Music; Philosophy; Political and Social Theory; Regional History; Religious Studies; Theatre Studies and Performing Arts; Warfare.

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Codices Vossiani Latini Online (Brill)
The Codices Vossiani Latini Online gives access to all 363 codices which form the world-famous Latin part of the manuscript collection compiled by Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) and held at Leiden University Library. Together the codices comprise 40,278 openings, resulting in 84,266 images, including covers and flyleaves. The collection includes a large number of early medieval manuscripts (76 Carolingian manuscripts dating from before 900), including major sources of many classic texts.

The manuscript collection is enriched by detailed information drawn from K. A. de Meyier's catalogues of the codices, providing users with essential information on the content, context, and physical appearance of each codex.

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Early English Books Online [EEBO] (ProQuest)
Contains over 100,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).

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Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) is the most ambitious single digitisation project ever undertaken which offers wide access not only to a century of the nation's intellectual heritage, but also works from earlier periods which were valued and printed or reprinted during the eighteenth century.

A library of over 180,000 eighteenth-century printed books, with more than 33 million scanned facsimile pages. Each title has a full citation record from the English Short Title Catalogue and is fully searchable - including full-text and illustrations multi-disciplinary. A research resource for all disciplines.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Oxford Bibliographies Online: Medieval Studies
An up-to-date and authoritative guide to the literature across a wide range of topics in medieval studies. Sources covered include journal articles, reference works, monographs and book chapters.

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Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation
An up-to-date and authoritative guide to the literature across a wide range of topics in the study of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Sources covered include journal articles, reference works, monographs and book chapters.

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Search for books and journals on YorSearch

Journals

All journal titles are listed on YorSearch, and can be found by searching the journal title.

If you don't have a specific title in mind, you can browse journals in your subject area on Browzine. Journals are organised by field of research, such as:

Browse all Art and Design

Browse all History

Art History

Film and Media Studies

Fine Arts

You can also search for journals on full text databases such as those shown below, but bear in mind that they are finite collections, so you could miss key articles on your topic. To find everything that has been published in a specific academic area you really need to use a bibliographic database.

American Periodicals Series Online (ProQuest)
American Periodicals Series Online is a major database containing digitized images of the pages of American magazines, journals and newspapers originating between 1741 and 1900. APS Online has over 7 million pages of content spanning nearly 200 years of American history up to Americas entry into World War II, and includes over 1,500 titles ranging from America 's first scientific journal, Medical Repository, to popular magazines like Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal.

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British Periodicals Collection (ProQuest)
The University has access to Collections I, II and IV.
British Periodicals provides access to the searchable full text of almost 500 periodicals published between the 1680s and the 2000s and covers a wide range of subjects from across the arts, sciences and social sciences.

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JSTOR
For alumni access please see the Virtual Library JSTOR section on Alumni Learning.
A digital archive collection of core scholarly journals starting with the first issues (many of which date from the 1800s). See JSTOR's online help guide for further information.

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Periodicals Archive Online
A major online archive that makes the backfiles of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences available electronically, providing access to the page image of a growing number of digitized periodicals that are already indexed in the Periodicals Contents Index (PCI).

The University has access to Collections 1, 2 and 8 plus a selection of 130 titles purchased by JISC drawn from other collections.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Project MUSE
Project MUSE, founded by Johns Hopkins University Press, is a database of over 380 full text scholarly journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences from over 70 (mainly university press) publishers.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Newspapers & Magazines

Historic and contemporary newsreel, newspaper & magazine collections. These resources can be a valuable tool when researching, giving insight into how a specific topic has been perceived by the general public over time.

Magazines

19th Century UK Periodicals, Part 1: Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure
Formerly 19th Century UK Periodicals Series 1: New Readerships
Provides access to facsimile editions of almost 100 periodicals from the 19th century focusing on women, sports and leisure, children, and humour and satire. The collection is mainly based on the repositories of the British Library and the National Library of Scotland.

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American Periodicals Series Online (ProQuest)
American Periodicals Series Online is a major database containing digitized images of the pages of American magazines, journals and newspapers originating between 1741 and 1900. APS Online has over 7 million pages of content spanning nearly 200 years of American history up to Americas entry into World War II, and includes over 1,500 titles ranging from America 's first scientific journal, Medical Repository, to popular magazines like Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal.

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Artforum Archive,1962-2020 (ProQuest)
This archive gives access to the full text of Artforum (later Artforum International) from 1962 to 2020. Artforum is the leading magazine for coverage of international contemporary art reporting on art in all media through features, reviews, and interviews relating to artists, exhibitions, publications, and other art world events / trends.

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Art and Architecture Archive (ProQuest)
The University has access to Collection I.
A full text, full colour archive of some of the foremost art and architecture magazines published between 1895 and 2005. The twenty six titles cover subjects including fine art, decorative arts, architecture, interior design, industrial design, and photography.

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Country Life Archive
This archive gives access to the full text of Country Life from the first issue as Country Life Illustrated (1897-1901) to 2005. All pages are reproduced in high-resolution full colour and are fully searchable.

All editorial content and pictorial features are presented as separate documents, the featured company and brand names from advertisements have been assigned to the document records where possible, and all image captions are indexed, allowing for precise retrieval of photographs and illustrations. Contributor names that appear in image credits are also indexed.

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Education Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
An archive of the backfiles of 26 magazines and trade publications in the field of education covering the period 1910 to 2015. The titles were originally aimed at teachers, policy makers, administrators, and other education professionals, and offer insights into educational history, theory, and perspectives while reflecting more than a century of evolving trends, issues, values, and practice in areas such as teaching methods, policy, administration, and resources.

The archive includes general titles, subject-specific publications, titles aimed at educational leaders, and titles devoted to women and ethnic minorities in education. Many educational sectors and levels are represented including early years teaching, higher education, vocational education, independent schools, and distance learning.

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Independent Voices
Independent Voices gives access to the full text of alternative press publications from the U.S. and Canada published in the latter half of the 20th century. These publications were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals and the New Left, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBTs, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines.

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LGBT Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
The University has access to Collection 1 .
This archive documents more than six decades (1954 - 2015) of the history and culture of the LGBT community through the full text of the most influential and longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Titles available include: The Advocate, Gay Times, The Pink Paper, Transgender Tapestry, and Man and Society.

Due to the rarity of some of the original print volumes, there are small gaps (issues or pages) in the runs of some publications.

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Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991
The Listener Historical Archive gives access to a fully searchable facsimile archive of The Listener, the BBC periodical published from 1929-1991. The online archive consists of the complete 62 year run of the paper, with 129,000 pages and more than 226,000 articles, all digitised from originals in full colour.

The Listener was initially developed as the medium for reproducing broadcast talks on radio, and in later years on television. It covered a diverse range of subjects, commenting and expanding on the intellectual broadcasts of the week. It also provided an important platform for new writers and poets, previewed major literary and musical programmes and regularly reviewed new books.

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Vogue Archive (ProQuest)
American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution colour page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with indexing enabling images to be searched for by garment type, designer and brand name.

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Women's Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
Women's Magazine Archive gives access to three collections of full text backfiles from leading women’s interest consumer magazines from the US, UK and Canada. Titles are scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution colour ensuring that the original print artefacts are faithfully reproduced and that valuable non-article items, such as advertisements, are included. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005.

The following magazines are included in the archive:

Collection 1 - Better Homes & Gardens (US); Chatelaine (Canada); Good Housekeeping (US); Ladies’ Home Journal (US); Parents (US); Redbook (US).

Collection 2 - Cosmopolitan (US); Essence (US); Seventeen (US); Town and Country (US); Woman’s Day (US); Women’s International Network News (US).

Collection 3 - Company (UK); Cosmopolitan (UK); Good Housekeeping (UK); Prima (UK); She (UK).

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Newsreel

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
You will need to register for an account the first time that you access Box of Broadcasts.

Please note that you may only access and use Box of Broadcasts in the United Kingdom..
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is an on demand TV and radio service for education. Users can record programmes from over 65 free-to-air channels and access an extensive archive of programmes already available. Users can also create clips from programmes and compile playlists.

Please note that you may only access and use BoB in the United Kingdom.

For help with this resource, take a look at the BoB FAQs.

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BUND: British Universities Newsreel Database
160,000 digitised records of British cinema newsreels, 80,000 digitised production documents, online texts, a Who's Who of British Newsreels and much more, dating back to 1910.

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European Newsstream (ProQuest)
European Newsstream gives access to the full text of over 550 news sources from across Europe including newspapers, newswires, websites, blogs, magazines, trade and scholarly journals, and reports. It includes UK national daily and regional newspapers alongside major European titles such as Le Monde.

The database is updated daily and the back issues archive varies by title.

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Newspapers

17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
A digitised version of the newspapers, news-books, pamphlets, ephemera, and other early forms of newspapers from the Reverend Charles Burney Collection held at the British Library. The collection includes almost 1 million pages from around 1,270 titles and while the majority of these originate from London, there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the colonies.

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17th & 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection
This collection gives access to the full text of material from the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The collection covers the years 1672 to 1737 and includes more than 300 newspaper and periodical titles along with over 250 pamphlets and broadsheets.

The material covers a broad range of important events and topics in both British and international early modern history, including the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Jacobite rebellion, the deaths of notable monarchs and the Treaty of Utrecht.

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American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1 (1749-1900)
Includes approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1749 and 1900 all reproduced as full colour digital editions.

The broadsides cover a range subjects from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports.

The ephemera includes such items as: clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, billheads, menus and invitations for civic, political and private celebrations, stock certificates illustrated with manufacturers’ vignettes, theater and music programs, autobiographies and dying confessions of convicted criminals, theater playbills, sheet almanacs, publishers’ prospectuses, advertisements, newspaper carriers’ addresses, patriotic and popular songs and poems and more.
American Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
A collection of full text archives of American newspapers with page and article facsimile images. The University has access to: Atlanta Constitution; Atlanta Daily World; Chicago Defender; Chicago Tribune; New York Times; New York Tribune; Washington Post.

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British Library Newspapers
Includes: Parts I & II (1800-1900); Part III (1741-1950); Part IV (1732-1950); Part V (1746-1950); Part VI (Ireland, 1797-1950).

Also known as: 19th Century British Newspapers
A major collection of almost 6.4 million facsimile pages from more than 240 national, regional, and local newspapers published between the 1700's and 1950. The collection includes both daily and weekly publications with titles from established country or university towns, the industrial towns of the Midlands and the North, and from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Newspapers associated with particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule have also been included along with penny papers aimed at a working class and clerical readership.

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Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896-2016
The Daily Mail from 2017 onward is also available via YorSearch.
More than one hundred years of this major UK national newspaper can be viewed in full digital facsimile form, with copious advertisements, news stories and images that capture twentieth-century culture and society. As well as the regular edition of the newspaper, the Daily Mail Historical Archive also includes the Daily Mail Atlantic Edition, which was published on board the cruise ships that sailed between New York and Southampton from 1923 to 1931.

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Daily Mirror Historical Archive, 1903-2000
The Daily Mirror from 2001 onward is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of the Daily Mirror from 1903 to 2000 and the Sunday Mirror from 1916 to 2000 (know as the Sunday Pictorial from 1916 to 1963). All issues are fully searchable with facsimile images of the original pages available to view and download.

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Early American Newspapers, Series I-V, 1690-1922 (America's Historical Newspapers)
Early American Newspapers gives access to the full text of over 1200 newspaper titles from across the United States published between 1690 and 1922.
Economist Historical Archive, 1843 - 2015
The Economist from 1997 onward is also available via YorSearch.
A complete facsimile edition of The Economist with full-colour images, topic and area supplements and surveys, a gallery of front covers and a selection of exportable financial tables.

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Far Eastern Economic Review Archive, 1946-2009 (ProQuest)
The Far Eastern Economic Review was published weekly between 1946 and 2004 and then monthly until 2009. This archive gives full text access to the full run of over 3,000 issues. Far Eastern Economic Review covered many topics including politics, economics, international relations, the arts, and culture. Although the initial focus was on China and Hong Kong, coverage was expanded to other regions and countries including Japan, India and Australia, as well as smaller Asian states.

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Financial Times 1982 onwards (excluding the last 30 days) (Nexis)
Due to a problem with Nexis you cannot currently search the Financial Times as a specific source but you can still access it, see More info for further details.

Due to a problem with Nexis you cannot currently search the Financial Times as a specific source (i.e. select to search just the Financial Times), however results from the Financial Times will be returned from general searches and you can then use the Publication Name filter to only show results from the Financial Times.

Please note that the Financial Times coverage in Nexis excludes the last 30 days.

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Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2010
This fully-searchable facsimile edition of the FT offers the complete run of the London edition of the paper from its first issue onwards. Every individual article, advertisement and market listing is included and shown individually and in the context of the full page and issue of the day.

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Global Press Archive (East View)
A collection of digitised historical news sources from around the world available open access with each newspaper presented in full-image and full-text format. The archive gives access to stand-alone titles and collections of multiple titles from a specific region and time period. Wherever possible, titles are presented in their complete runs from the first issue. The collections currently available include titles from the Middle East and North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Late Qing and Republican-Era China, Imperial Russia, and Mexico.

The archive is an initiative of Stanford Libraries and the Hoover Institution Library & Archives to digitally preserve and make more accessible thousands of original print newspaper publications collected by the Hoover Institution and now housed by Stanford Libraries.
Guardian, 1821-2003 and Observer, 1791-2003 (ProQuest)
The Guardian from 2004 onward is also available via YorSearch.
The Observer from 2004 onward is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of page and article facsimile images of the Guardian (1821 - 2003) and the Observer (1791 - 2003).

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Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
The complete facsimile archive of the Illustrated London News, the worlds first fully illustrated weekly newspaper published between 1842 and 2003. The archive includes over 260,000 pages of text and more than 1.5 million full colour images.

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Irish Times, 1859 onwards (excluding the most recent 2 years) and Weekly Irish Times, 1876 - 1958 (ProQuest)
The Irish Times current content is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of page and article facsimile images of The Irish Times (1859 onwards, excluding the most recent 2 years) and The Weekly Irish Times (1876 - 1958). Coverage includes The Times Pictorial.

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Nexis
Personalisation is available via the link above.

Alternative link without personalisation if you have problems with the link above (please clear the cookies and cache in your browser): Nexis.
Nexis is a major source of global news and business information. It provides full-text access to over 34,000 publications, with more than 12,000 news sources including UK daily and regional newspapers, current affairs magazines, and professional journals. Updated daily; back issues archive varies by title.

Nexis also includes 80 sources of company information, plus thousands of biographies of government officials, politicians, celebrities, investors and business contacts.

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Sunday Times Historical Archive, 1822-2016
The Sunday Times from 1985 onward is also available via YorSearch.
This archive gives access to the full text of The Sunday Times, including the supplements, with full page and article scans making over 800,000 pages and 3.5 million articles available for browsing and searching.

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Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2016
The Telegraph from 2017 onward is also available via YorSearch.
Launched in 1855 as an affordable newspaper, by 1876 The Telegraph was the largest-selling newspaper in the world, with a circulation of 300,000. The Telegraph Historical Archive has over 1 million pages of content and includes the Sunday edition from its inception in 1961.

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Times 1985 - present (Nexis)
Also includes access to The Times website (thetimes.co.uk) from 2011.
Gives access to the full-text of The Times from 1 July 1985 and The Times website (thetimes.co.uk) from 23 December 2010.

For The Times 1785 - 2019 see the entry: Times Digital Archive, 1785 - 2019

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Times Digital Archive, 1785 - 2019
A full-image archive of every page published by The Times (London) from 1785 until 2019. The text within the images is fully searchable at the article level.

For The Times from 2020 onwards see the entry: Times 1985 - present.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Times Higher Education (THE)
For access you need to register for a personal THE account at the site.

You must register using your York email address @york.ac.uk and create your own username and password (the username will display on public parts of the site e.g. comments).
Times Higher Education provides analysis, news, comment and insight regarding the world of higher education.

Our subscription gives access to all THE online content, including weekly digital editions and rankings supplements. To access the digital editions click the “Professional” tab, then click “Digital Editions”.

You can also access the THE app for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire devices. You can download the app from your app store provider.
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, 1902 - 2014
Some Times Literary Supplement content from 2015 onward is also available via YorSearch.
This fully-searchable full colour facsimile edition of the TLS includes every page of every copy published from 1902 until 2014.

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Times of India, 1838 onwards (excluding the most recent 9 years) (ProQuest)
Times of India current content is also available via YorSearch.
A full text archive of page and article facsimile images of The Times of India from 1838 onwards (excluding the most recent 9 years).

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Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers & Periodicals, 1800-1900 (Series 2)
For access off-campus please use the VPN.
The Waterloo Directory provides a comprehensive, dynamic bibliography of 19th century periodical literature with information about 50,000 titles from a wide variety of subject areas. Facsimile title pages are available for 9,000 titles and many entries have additional commentary drawn from secondary sources. Library locations are provided for the UK and North America and the Directory is regularly updated.

Theses and dissertations

Information about theses is available on the main Library website.

All University PhD and MPhil theses are available in the Library in hard copy (find them using YorSearch). For Masters theses, only certain Departments make these available via our Digital Collections, which you can find linked to in the top pane in YorSearch.

All York PG Research students are required to upload their thesis into the White Rose Research Online, a shared online respository for academic publications from the Universities of York, Sheffield and Leeds. You can also access theses from outside the University:

British Library EThOS Service
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The British Library's electronic online theses service. Free access to over 300,000 full-text theses from UK universities.

DART-Europe E-theses Portal This link opens in a new window
A searchable database of details of doctoral-level electronic theses which are held in European repositories. The theses listed are publicly available, in full, without charge. The DART-Europe Portal does not store theses, but it provides a link to at least one electronic copy of every thesis listed in its database.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
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Useful for searching for international theses.

Open Access Theses and Dissertations This link opens in a new window
An index of over 1.6 million graduate-level electronic theses and dissertations that are freely available online.

Bibliographic Databases

To start a more detailed search for articles and other research evidence, you'll need to use bibliographic databases. These are large indexes that allow you to search for articles from hundreds of different journals at the same time. The databases do not necessarily give you access to the full text, instead they will usually include the citation information and a brief abstract that gives a summary of the work. If you find citations for resources that we don't hold at York you can request the full text via the "Tell us what you need" link on YorSearch.

The University holds many subject specific bibliographic databases as listed below. If your work is more interdisciplinary we recommend using one of the larger databases such as Web of Science which, despite the name, covers all subject areas and allows you to search effectively across multiple disciplines.

Interdisciplinary Databases

Web of Science
Web of Science provides access to the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

For help using this resource for bibliometrics see Bibliometrics: a practical guide.

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History of Art Databases

Arts & Humanities Citation Index (Web of Science)
Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities.

For help using this resource for bibliometrics see Bibliometrics: a practical guide.

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Index of Medieval Art
Images and descriptive data documenting medieval art from early apostolic times to the sixteenth century. The focus is primarily on Christian iconography but secular subjects as well as a growing number of subjects from medieval Jewish and Islamic culture are also included.

Kubikat Kubikat is a collective catalogue of Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Max-Planck-Institut, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Rome. Kubikat is the largest art libraries database and contains more than 1.5 million records including 800,000 articles in scholarly periodicals, conference papers, commemorative volumes and exhibition catalogues.

Bibliography of British and Irish History (Brepolis)
You can still access the legacy BBIH interface.
Previously known as the Royal Historical Society Bibliography this is a comprehensive guide to historical writing about the history of Britain, Ireland, and the British overseas from 55BC to the present.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.
Bibliography of the History of Art / Répertoire de la litterature de l'art
Bibliography of the History of Art / Répertoire de la litterature de l'art from the J. Paul Getty Trust covers international literature on the history of art in Europe and the New World. The database surveys the visual arts and material culture from late antiquity to the present. Included are both the fine arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing and prints) and decorative and applied arts (popular art, folk art). BHA / RILA indexes and abstracts over 1,200 journals, as well as books, conference proceedings, essays, exhibition catalogues, selected art dealers' catalogues, doctoral dissertations and microform publications. Abstracts are in either French or English and the thesaurus for data from 1990 is in both languages.
International Medieval Bibliography Online (Brepolis)
You can still access the legacy IMB interface.
This is an interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages, covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in the period 400-1500.

The publication years covered by this resource are from 1967 onwards.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

More databases to explore

The databases below cover a range of disciplines and may be useful depending on your research topic

19th Century UK Periodicals, Part 1: Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure This link opens in a new window
Formerly 19th Century UK Periodicals Series 1: New Readerships
Provides access to facsimile editions of almost 100 periodicals from the 19th century focusing on women, sports and leisure, children, and humour and satire. The collection is mainly based on the repositories of the British Library and the National Library of Scotland.

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American State Papers, 1789-1838 This link opens in a new window
Includes the full text of legislative and executive documents of the first 14 U.S. Congresses.
Annual Register: A Record of World Events (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
A year-by-year record of British and world events, published annually since 1758.

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British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries is a major collection of diaries and correspondence spanning more than 400 years and giving access to the personal experiences of nearly 500 women. It contains around 100,000 pages of published letters and diaries and over 4,000 facsimile pages of previously unpublished manuscripts. Letters and diaries of famous historic and literary figures can be found alongside the thoughts and experiences of ordinary women, including the unpublished letters and diaries of women who served during both world wars. The texts themselves are accompanied by biographies of the authors and bibliographic details of the sources.

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British History Online (Calendars of State Papers: Domestic, Scotland and Ireland) This link opens in a new window
The premium subscription content includes all the volumes of the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic and the Calendars of State Papers for Scotland and Ireland. British History Online also gives free access to digitised versions of a range of other primary and secondary sources for the medieval and early modern history of Britain.

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COVE: The Central Online Victorian Educator
A scholar-driven open-access platform that publishes peer-reviewed Victorian material and supports students with a number of online tools

C19: The Nineteenth Century Index (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index is the major bibliographic resource for 19th century research, providing integrated access to 10 indexes covering books, official publications, archives, newspapers, and periodicals at the article level. Currently C19 contains nearly 17 million records but is continuously updated as more records become available.

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Eighteenth Century Drama This link opens in a new window
Documents from the John Larpent Collection, an archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824. Larpent was the English Inspector of Plays from 1778-1824 and preserved plays submitted for licence under the 1737 Licensing Act.

The collection includes over 2,500 plays, epilogues, prologues, addresses and songs submitted for licence along with the diaries of Larpents wife and professional collaborator Anna, recording her criticisms of plays, and hundreds of further documents including playbills, theatre records and correspondence between key theatrical figures.

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Empire Online This link opens in a new window
Over 60,000 images of original manuscripts and printed material 1492-1962 from libraries and archives around the world.

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Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
More than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand.

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Grand Tour This link opens in a new window
This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works gives an insight into the English abroad c1550 to 1850. The primary material includes letters, diaries and journals, account books, printed guidebooks, published travel writing, maps, paintings, sketches, and architectural drawings. Secondary sources include introductory essays; a searchable, full-text version of John Ingamells Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800; a selection of digitised source material from the Brinsley Ford Archive at the Paul Mellon Centre, London, and an indexed collection of hundreds of modern photographs of Italy, providing a detailed visual source of all the historical sites, palaces and streets visited by tourists.

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History of Feminism This link opens in a new window
Primary and secondary resources charting the history of feminism over the long nineteenth century (17761928). The collection is organised into eight subject areas covering education, empire, literature and writing, movements and ideologies, politics and law, religion and belief, society and culture, and women at home; with primary source documents accompanied by secondary source book chapters, journal articles, thematic essays, and images.

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International Historical Statistics, 1750-2010 This link opens in a new window
Includes 260 years of statistical data covering a wide range of key economic and social indicators. Data is available on the Americas and Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Data tables can be downloaded as PDFs and/or Excel files.

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Locating London's Past This link opens in a new window
An interactive map, exploring the social history of early modern and eighteenth century London. Information is drawn from a variety of resources, and includes trial acts from the Old Bailey and archaeological data.
London Low Life This link opens in a new window
London Low Life contains a wealth of full colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. It also gives access to a range of secondary resources, including a chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links to other websites.

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Manufacturing Pasts This link opens in a new window
A range of multimedia resources illustrating industrial change in twentieth century Britain using Leicester as an example.

Four major themes are used to illustrate the changing industrial city: deindustrialization, conservation and regeneration, social life of the factory, the factory and the community.

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Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window
Mass Observation was a pioneering social research organization whose papers provide insights into the cultural and social history of Britain from 1937 to 1972. The University has purchased the complete Mass Observation Online collection giving access to:
- File reports 1937-1951.
- Publications by Mass Observation between 1937 and 1966.
- Topic Collections, 1937-1965 (87 collections).
- Day Surveys 1937-1938.
- Diaries 1939-1967.
- Directives 1939-1955.
- Worktown Collection
- Support materials (essays, maps, a bibliography, a chronology, and photographs).
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Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration This link opens in a new window
Concentrating on the period 1800 to 1924, this collection of primary materials covers all aspects of the migration experience, from departures to arrival and permanent settlement.

Included in the collection are letters, travel journals, diaries and oral histories giving first-hand accounts of the experience of emigration and settlement alongside scrapbooks, government papers, hand-drawn maps, watercolours, objects, emigration pamphlets, shipping papers and rare printed material which provide context to the history of migration, legislation and living conditions during this period.

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National Maritime Museum Archives This link opens in a new window
The National Maritime Museum's collection contains over two million objects related to seafaring, navigation, astronomy and measuring time with over 10,000 objects available online including charts and maps, manuscript and fine art collections.

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Parker Library on the Web This link opens in a new window
The Parker Library on the Web is an interactive, web-based workspace designed to support use and study of the manuscripts in the historic Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It gives access to almost 200,000 manuscript page images, page images of secondary sources, manuscript descriptions, and extensive bibliographic data. Bibliographic records are linked to page images wherever possible. The manuscripts date from the 6th to 16th centuries and include works on various subjects such as theology, music, history, travel, alchemy and politics.
Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275-1504 This link opens in a new window
The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272 – 1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485 – 1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords and, somewhat later, of the commons. The rolls, which amount in total to over four million words, were first edited in the eighteenth century and published in 1783 in six folio volumes entitled Rotuli Parliamentorum ( RP) under the general editorship of the Reverend John Strachey. This new edition reproduces the rolls edited in RP in their entirety, plus those subsequently published by Cole, Maitland, and Richardson and Sayles as well as a substantial amount of material never previously published, together with a full translation of all the texts from the three languages used by the medieval clerks (Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English).
Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700 This link opens in a new window
This collection has been produced in association with the Perdita Project and brings together complete digital facsimiles of nearly 270 original manuscripts containing little know material written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The manuscripts represent a wide variety of womens writing and include account books, almanacs, diaries, notebooks, receipt books, sermon notes, speeches, and treatises. The types of writing include biography and autobiography, drama, history, prayers, psalms, meditations, advice, translations, travel writing, cookery and medical recipes, and poetry.

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State Papers Online This link opens in a new window
The Stuart and Cumberland Papers from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle are on trial until 3rd March 2025.
This major archive gives access to the following collections:

- The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Domestic
- The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Foreign, Scotland, Borders, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
- The Stuarts and Commonwealth, James I - Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Domestic
- The Stuarts and Commonwealth, James I - Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Foreign, Ireland
- Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782, Part I: State Papers Domestic, Military, Naval and Registers of the Privy Council

The resource reproduces the original historical manuscripts in facsimile and links each manuscript to its corresponding fully-searchable Calendar entry.

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Victorian Popular Culture This link opens in a new window
Victorian Popular Culture contains a wide range of primary source material, mostly digitised in colour, relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. There is an emphasis on visual sources and rare printed material including rare books, periodicals, playbills and handbills, posters, prints, scrapbooks, photographs, programmes, pamphlets, ephemera (e.g. ticket stubs, postcards, newspaper cuttings), and songbooks.

The University has access to:
- Spiritualism, Sensation & Magic
- Circuses, Sideshows & Freaks
- Music Hall, Theatre & Popular Entertainment

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Audiovisual Resources

The Library has an AV Collection on the ground floor of the Harry Fairhurst building which includes recordings of music, theatre, opera, TV broadcasts and films, including a foreign language section. The collection contains DVDs, blu rays and VHS formats, as well as CDs and cassettes, but the vast majority of films here are currently in DVD format. You will also find a DVD viewing room that small groups can use (bookable via the Library room booking pages).

The resources below give you access to our online collection of recordings of works created or adapted for film, radio or live performance, in addition to interviews with composers, performers, authors, producers and a broad range of further related materials .

Screen Resources

American Film Institute Catalog (ProQuest)
AFI Catalog is a national filmography documenting the history of American cinema. It currently covers the years 1893-1974 comprehensively, with additional records covering selected major films from 1975 onwards.

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American Film Scripts Online (Alexander Street)
The University has access to Volume I.
Accurate and authorised versions of more than 1,000 copyrighted screenplays covering a period from 1903 to 2009. The screenplays are accompanied by detailed information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts. Facsimile images for more than 500 of these screenplays are also available. Many of these scripts have never been published before and are not available online anywhere else.

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BFI Player
11,000 free to view archive films from the BFI, national and regional archives including shorts, features, and 120 years of Britain on film.

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Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
You will need to register for an account the first time that you access Box of Broadcasts.

Please note that you may only access and use Box of Broadcasts in the United Kingdom..
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is an on demand TV and radio service for education. Users can record programmes from over 65 free-to-air channels and access an extensive archive of programmes already available. Users can also create clips from programmes and compile playlists.

Please note that you may only access and use BoB in the United Kingdom.

For help with this resource, take a look at the BoB FAQs.

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British Council Film Collection
An archive of over 120 short documentary films made by the British Council during the 1940s and designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played.

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Kanopy
Kanopy gives access to thousands of films as streaming video. The database gives access to films across a range of subject areas and includes documentaries, training films, classic and independent movies and world cinema titles.

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Open Video Project
A repository of digitised video content for the digital video, multimedia retrieval, digital library and other research communities.
Screen Online
Screen Online is no longer being updated and film clips may not be available, for access to film clips see the free collections available via BFI Player.
Screen Online is a website covering the history of British film and television and Britain's social history as revealed by film and television. The site contains video clips from the collections of the British Film Institute National Film and Television Archive, stills, posters and press books and several hours of recorded interviews with film and television personalities.
TRILT: Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching
TRILT includes selected terrestrial television listings from 1995 onwards and complete schedules from 2001 for over 330 different UK channels, including digital, satellite and cable television, local and national radio stations and regional variations. TRILT includes details on programmes coming up for transmission at least 10 days in advance and also automatically flags which programmes may be obtained via the BUFVC's Off-Air Recording Back-Up Service.

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Web of Stories
Formerly known as: Peoples Archive
An archive of online movies featuring detailed life stories of the world's greatest thinkers, creators and achievers narrated in one-to-one interviews. The life stories are arranged into seven sections covering Arts, Film, Literature, Masters, Medicine, Politics and Science and are accompanied by transcripts with complete bibliographies or filmographies, external links to relevant websites and illustrations. Web of Stories is a dynamic resource with new life stories contiually being added.

Sound Resources

Archival Sound Recordings
This website contains over 28,000 recordings from the British Library Sound Archive. Recordings can be browsed by collection and a keyword search is also available. Recordings can be downloaded and used for the purposes of teaching, learning and research.

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CHARM - AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music
A repository of over 2,000 digitised 78rpm recordings by British and Irish artists between 1900 and 1950, alongside information about the history of recording.

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Commercial Radio Archive
To access recordings enter "University of York" and select it from the list then log in with your York IT Services username and password.
Gives access to archives of Independent Local Radio from 1973 to 1996 including the: Independent Local Radio Programme Sharing Database; London Broadcasting Company/Independent Radio News Archive; Independent Local Radio Central Southern Archive.

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TRILT: Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching
TRILT includes selected terrestrial television listings from 1995 onwards and complete schedules from 2001 for over 330 different UK channels, including digital, satellite and cable television, local and national radio stations and regional variations. TRILT includes details on programmes coming up for transmission at least 10 days in advance and also automatically flags which programmes may be obtained via the BUFVC's Off-Air Recording Back-Up Service.

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Yorkshire Film Archive Online
A film archive which provides access to moving images documenting Yorkshire life, landscape and culture from the 1890s to the present day.

Stage Resources

BBC Shakespeare Archive
To access the archive you will need to register for an ERA account at the site using your University of York email address. You can then login using your York email address and ERA password.
A collection of programmes and photographs from the BBC's Shakespeare archive. It includes Shakespeare’s plays, poems and sonnets, documentaries, interviews and over a thousand stills of classic Shakespeare productions, as well as entertainment programmes referencing Shakespeare.
Digital Theatre Plus
Provides an insight into theatre from production to performance through access to streaming video. The material in Digital Theatre Plus includes:

- Productions (high-definition films of leading British theatre productions).
- Behind-the-scenes documentaries and interviews with professional theatre makers.
- Study guides written by practitioners and academics.
- Teaching support demonstrating practical techniques.
- Curated collections of filmed performance from around the world.

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Drama Online (Bloomsbury Online)
You will not have access to all the content in Drama Online, please see More info for details of what is available.

If Drama Online does not recognise you as University of York then select the Log In option in the top-right of the page and under Helpful Hints select Shibboleth Login Page
Drama Online gives access to the full-text of over 2,000 plays from the very earliest Greek works right up to the present day, including the most current editions from the Arden Shakespeare series, contemporary plays from Nick Hern Books, Aurora Metro Books, and Oberon Books, selected works of commentary and criticism and hundreds of production stills from the Victoria and Albert Museum Performance collection. There are also videos of plays in performance from the National Theatre and Stage on Screen and two Shakespeare masterclasses.

The University has access to the following:
- Core Collection of plays
- Nick Hern Books Collection (titles published up to 10th April 2019)
- Aurora Metro Books Collection
- Oberon Books Collection
- National Theatre Collections 1 & 2 (Video)
- Stage on Screen Collection (Video)
- Shakespeare in the Present (Masterclass Video)
- Shakespeare's Heroes and Villains: Steven Berkoff (Masterclass Video)
- Maxine Peake as Hamlet (Video)

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Eighteenth Century Drama
Documents from the John Larpent Collection, an archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824. Larpent was the English Inspector of Plays from 1778-1824 and preserved plays submitted for licence under the 1737 Licensing Act.

The collection includes over 2,500 plays, epilogues, prologues, addresses and songs submitted for licence along with the diaries of Larpents wife and professional collaborator Anna, recording her criticisms of plays, and hundreds of further documents including playbills, theatre records and correspondence between key theatrical figures.

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Opera in Video (Alexander Street)
Gives access to some of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries. Selections represent the worlds best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a works importance to the operatic canon.

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Performing Arts Periodicals Database (ProQuest)
Formerly International Index to Performing Arts Full Text
A major database of the journal literature on the performing arts and covers a broad range of areas including dance, film, television, drama, theatre, stagecraft, musical theatre, circus performance, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, comedy, broadcast arts and performance art. Performing Arts Periodicals Database includes indexing and abstracts for more than 240 international titles and the full text of articles from over 80 journals.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

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Records of Early English Drama (REED)
Records, drawn from historical documents, containing evidence of drama, secular music, and other communal entertainment and ceremony from the Middle Ages until 1642.

This online version of REED includes records published from 2017 onwards. The REED website has links to PDF versions of some earlier print volumes of REED. To find print volumes available in the library please search YorSearch.

General Reference Works

Bloomsbury World Englishes Online Encyclopaedia This link opens in a new window
Volumes 1-3 of this series, which presents a comprehensive, detailed survey of English as it is spoken all over the world and includes maps, facts and detailed descriptions for each region.

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Dictionary of Irish Biography This link opens in a new window
Over 11,000 signed biographical articles outline the careers at home and overseas of prominent men and women born in Ireland, north and south, and the noteworthy Irish careers of those born outside Ireland. Articles describe and assess the careers of subjects in all fields of endeavour, including politics, law, religion, literature, journalism, architecture, painting, music, the stage, science, medicine, engineering, entertainment and sport.

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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
An illustrated collection of 50,000 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.

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Oxford English Dictionary Online This link opens in a new window
For access off-campus select the Sign in through your institution option on the OED site.
Search on words, definitions, etymology and quotations. The OED Online contains the complete text of the 20-volume Second Edition, first published in 1989, together with later additions. New and revised entries are added every quarter.

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Oxford Reference Online: Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
A fully-indexed, cross-searchable database of over 100 dictionaries, companions, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.

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History of Art

Resources

Finding Resources

Primary source texts

Books

Key History of Art E-Book Collections

Journals

Journals

Newspapers & Magazines

News Reporting & Magazines

Magazines

Newsreel

Newspapers

Theses and dissertations

Theses & Dissertations

Bibliographic Databases

Bibliographic Databases

Interdisciplinary Databases

History of Art Databases

More databases to explore

Historical Sources

Audiovisual Resources

Screen, Stage and Sound Resources

Screen Resources

Sound Resources

Stage Resources

General Reference Works

General Reference Works