History
Overview
This comprehensive research collection covers all periods of history. Collection strengths include: British History, Irish History, and European History. Furthermore, there is an extensive collection of periodicals and general coverage of Archaeology.
Location
- History books on open access are located on the 5th floor, where the collections begins, and continue on the Periodicals Room gallery on the 4th floor below.
- Books housed in the stacks and off-site can be requested through the library catalogue.
Print periodicals
- Recent issues of print periodicals are on display in the Periodicals Room (North Reading Room), 4th floor.
- Most back issues of print periodicals are shelved in the stacks. These will display the location Stack Service on the library catalogue. Please request these items through the Catalogue using the Fetch Service.
- There is a guide to finding print and electronic Newspapers, both historical and current.
Finding articles
- You can search multiple journals at once using electronic resources such as the Bibliography of British and Irish History, Historical Abstracts 1955- , or International Medieval Bibliography Online.
- Addiional indexes and article databases can be found on the History e-resource list.
Electronic resources
The History Collection is complimented by an excellent range of electronic resources that provide significant and rich digitised primary and secondary resources. View History e-resource list.
- You can find secondary sources on Bibliography of British and Irish History, Historical Abstracts 1955- , or International Medieval Bibliography Online, among other e-resources.
- You can search among 300,000 historical books published in English or in England before 1800 and 65,000 19th century books on Jisc Historical Texts.
- You can browse and search collections of primary sources on British History Online, The Making of the Modern World, Global Commodities, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera, the Parker Library on the Web, and Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007, among others.
- You can read full-text historical newspapers on the 17th-18th century Burney Collection newspapers, 19th century British Library newspapers, and The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985, among other resources.
Related collections
- Social Sciences
- Latin American Studies and United States Studies
- Manuscript and Print Studies
- Special Collections
- Archives – These collections include historians’ papers, documents on coins and counterfeiting, friendly societies, enslavement, temperance and Trotskyism. (Find archives items using the Archives Catalogue).
- Institute of Historical Research Library
- History Collections – This is the website of members of the Committee of London Research Libraries in History.
Banner credit
Image depicting the end of the 1381 peasant’s revolt – image credit
