Research News

British library 'Discovering Literature' online project

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:51:00 +0000

Discovering Literature covers the Romantic and Victorian periods and brings together, for the first time, some of the British Library’s greatest literary treasures. This online resource includes numerous original manuscripts, first editions and rare illustrations. Material, such as newspapers, photographs, advertisements and maps, is presented alongside personal letters and diaries from authors.

The site also includes articles, twenty five short documentary films, and contemporary research. William Blake’s notebook, an early draft of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and the childhood writings of the Brontë sister are examples of the unique collections available.

Research Councils UK - Gateway to Research

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:48:00 +0000

Gateway to Research is a new web-based portal funded by all seven Research Councils and Innovate UK. It enables users to explore the breadth of research across all disciplines and industry sectors and provides access to information and academic experts. Gateway to Research contains information about who, what and where the Councils fund, as well as details about outcomes, outputs and impact.

Research Councils UK also provide access to a range of publications and resources, including the RCUK Impact Report 2014 which demonstrates how the Research Councils have worked together to achieve greater impact for the research they support. Have a look at their Publications and Resources webpages for further details.

Flickr Commons Collections

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 12:22:00 +0000

The U.S National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine Division collects, preserves, and makes available one of the world’s richest collections of historical material related to human health and disease. The holdings include pre-1914 books, pre-1871 journals, archives and modern manuscripts, historical prints, photographs and films. The first seven health related albums which include book illustrations, posters, prints, trade cards and photographs have currently been uploaded to the Commons : https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlmhmd/

The Internet Archive has uploaded more than 14 million public domain images to Flickr spanning a huge wealth of topics. Each image includes detailed descriptions, including the subject tags of the book it came from and the text immediately surrounding it on the page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/
One of the purposes of the Internet Archive is to offer permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital format, including texts, audio, moving images, and archived web pages.

The key goal of Flickr Commons is to share material from the world's public photography archives.

Illustrated London News 1914-1918 archive

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 11:00:00 +0000

Illustrated London News 1914-1918 archive - the Illustrated London News Ltd has launched a website featuring 1914-1918 archive material from the Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated magazine, and seven other titles in its collection. The first-phase website includes the digitised pages from the Illustrated London News 1914-1918; editorial features providing context for the source material; a range of topical insights from “Animals and War” and “Trench Life” to “Sport and the War”; and a blog written by young historians appointed for the project.

Early European Books - new onlne resource

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 15:19:00 +0000

Early European Books is a comprehensive digitised collection of works printed in Europe between 1450-1700. It is based on the holdings of a variety of major European libraries and provides full-colour, facsimile images scanned directly from the original printed sources. This wonderful resource provides researchers with new ways of accessing and exploring the printed record of early modern Europe, drawing together a diverse array of sources including rare and previously hard to access material.
Early European Books is available on and off campus from the library home page Select the link to databases and you can access this resource from the A-Z list.

New electronic resource - Vogue Archive

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 15:16:00 +0000

The Library now provides access to The Vogue archive which is available on and off campus from the library homepage Select the link to databases and access the archive from the A-Z list.
The Vogue archive provides full text access to the complete run of US Vogue from 1892 to the most recent edition. It contains over 400,000 pages produced as high resolution full colour images. It is an excellent resource for those researching magazine publishing, fashion, photography, literature, advertising, cultural history, gender issues and celebrity.

British Library images

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 11:33:00 +0000

The British Library has released over one million images onto Flickr Commons. The images have been taken from 17th, 18th and 19th century books and cover a huge mix of subjects. They include comic satire, illustrations, maps, geological diagrams, landscapes, wall paintings and much more. The images are available for anyone to use, remix and repurpose.

The British Library is currently investigating new ways to navigate, discover and display these images which are available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary

'Comic History of Greece from the earliest times to the death of Alexander the Great'...Illustrated by Synder, Charles, M.

Each image is individually addressible, online, and Flickr provies an API to access it and the image's associated description. - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/2013/12/a-million-first-steps.html#sthash.Vm4dGhj8.dpuf

London's health records now publicly available online

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 16:41:00 +0000

London's Pulse, launched earlier this week, is a digitisation project from the Wellcome Library. This online resource contains more than 5000 fully searchable Medical Officer of Health reports from 1848 to 1973, detailing the health of Londoners in detail - borough by borough and often street by street. It is available at: http://wellcomelibrary.org/moh/

Here is part of the press release:

'The site showcases the often-overlooked work of Medical Officers of Health (MOHs), qualified medical practitioners who became influential agents of social and medical reform in the city. Their yearly reports amount to a health check of the capital over more than a century, recording vital statistics on births, deaths and illness, infant mortality, and infectious disease.

The reports also offer an unparalleled insight into Londoners’ lives, covering a dizzying array of topics. They contain details of London’s lost trades (such as hair-merchants and pigeon-fatteners), provide reports on the conditions of child workers in factories and families in slum housing, and trace changing tastes in fast food from oysters to Chinese takeaways'.

Copac Catalogue - helping researchers locate unique resources

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Copac is a free service, available from anywhere at http://copac.ac.uk which brings together the catalogues of over 70 UK and Irish libraries. Using Copac you can discover the holdings of the UK's national libraries, many university and specialist research libraries. The range of libraries include the British Library, Oxford and Cambridge universities, the National Trust, major Russian and East European collections, Middle Temple and Mechanical Engineers library. The Catalogue of the National Archive is also a very recent addition.

Copac covers a vast number of subjects and specialisms and can help researchers quickly and easily discover and locate a huge amount of material. You can search across all libraries or limit to an individual library - select 'Main search' and scroll down to see various options to limit your search

JournalTOCs - Current Awareness Service

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:21:00 +0000

JournalTOCs is a current awareness service which enables you to keep up-to-date with the scholarly journals in your areas of research. It is a freely available service for individual users. It provides access to the largest, free collection of scholarly Tables of Contents, over 21,000 journals from over 1,700 publishers. You can choose which journals you would like to follow and you will then be alerted when new issues of your followed journals are published.

Oxford Brookes Library webpages for researchers provide a range of information specifically for researchers including a section, under Managing information, on keeping up-to-date. There are details about online databases and e-journal collections that offer alerting services which help you stay current.

VITAE - realising the potential of researchers

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Tue, 07 May 2013 09:37:00 +0000

Vitae is a UK organisation which brings together all the stakeholders who work with researchers, such as funders, national organisations, policy makers, to develop policy and practices to support resarchers. There is a wealth of information available on the Vitae website for researchers, supervisors and employers. The section for postgraduate researchers contains information and advice on how to manage your research and yourself, how to develop and motivations for doing postgraduate research. There is advice on raising your profile, presenting your research and developing your career. Within this section there is also a link to 'The Researcher Development Framework' (RDF) which covers all aspects of professional development for researchers.

Managing Research Data

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:02:00 +0000

Does your research involve data? How do you store and share it? Did you know that some funders now require a data management plan? Research data managment is currently a very topical area. There are a range of publications and websites which can help you get to grips with all aspects of data managment.

Mantra is a freely available online course which has been developed primarily for PhD students and early career researchers. Mantra provides guidelines for good practice in many aspects of research data management. It consists of a number of units including: research data explained, data management plans, organising data, storage and preservation.

You can link to Mantra from the Research data management webpages at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/research/resdatamanagement.html

Library Training for Researchers

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:07:00 +0000

The Library is offering the following training sessions this semester for researchers. All sessions take place in the Headington library Training Room 12.00 - 13.00. There is no need to book.

Information at your desktop: finding your way around the Electronic Library
This session provides details of the range of electronic resources available at your desktop, including journals, journal collections, databases and reference resources.
Thursday 21 February and Tuesday 26 February

Keeping up-to-date
Keep abreast of new research and development in your subject area: find out how to keep up-to-date with new publications in journals, books, conferences and more; track your research using the Web of Knowledge citation indexes.
Tuesday 5 March and Monday 25 March

EndNote reference management service - we are offering two different sessions this semester:
Tuesday 12 March - An introduction to the key features of EndNote X5.
Tuesday 26 March and Friday 19 April - EndNote drop-in sessions: to help you with your EndNote (desktop or Web) questions and problems. Bring along any queries you have and a copy of your EndNote library and associated Word documents - there will be an opportunity to do some practical work.

Please contact libraryenquiries@brookes.ac.uk if you have any queries.

EndNote - help and training

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:14:00 +0000

The Library is offering a number of training sessions on EndNote this semester to help you manage your references more effectively. The Libary training pages provide details of the sessions still to come this semester.

The Library has also produced a suite of EndNote webpages which provide lots of information, including: Getting started with EndNote, Adding references to your library, Using Endnote with Word, Further help. There is also a new email enquiry service to help you with any EndNote problems available at lr-endnote@brookes.ac.uk

Keeping up-to-date with your research

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:04:00 +0000

The Library is running a training session to help researchers keep abreast of new research and development in their subject area: find out how to keep up-to-date with new publications in journals, books, conferences and more; track your research using the Web of Science citation indexes. The session will take place in the Headington Library Training Room, Tuesday 27 November, 12.00 – 13.00. There is no need to book.

If you are unable to come to the session your Subject Librarian is able to help you find and use appropriate resources for your research including research tools to enable you to keep up-to-date. Details of your Subject Librarian are available from this subject list.

Library resources on your mobile phone or tablet

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:08:00 +0000

There are now a range of mobile-friendly web sites and smartphone apps available for a number of our databases and e-journals. If you have a smartphone or tablet and want to discover which resources have mobile-friendly content available, see our page on Library resources on your mobile.

Our Library catalogue is now mobile-friendly, too. It uses screen size detection to supply a version of the catalogue interface suitable for the size of your device. Large-screen devices like desktop or laptop PCs or tablets will see the normal interface, but phones, media players etc. with smaller screens will display a faster loading, less graphics-laden page. The interface works with all main mobile device browsers including iPhone, Android, Opera Mobile/Mini, Windows Phone 7 Mango and the latest Blackberry versions.

The complex nature of some e-resources and the huge variety of mobile devices in circulation may lead to occasional problems when trying to view the desktop version of our electronic resources on a smartphone or tablet. We have a list of the more common issues, and what to do to resolve them, on our mobile problems page.

If you do experience a problem using one of our resources on your smartphone or tablet, please let us know via email at lib.suggestions@brookes.ac.uk or use the Library enquiry form.

Queen Victoria's Journals - freely available online

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 11:53:00 +0000

All the personal journals of Queen Victoria have been made available to search and read online. This unique resource is now openly available to everybody at http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org

The journals span Victoria's lifetime and consist of 141 volumes. Transcriptions of each page–searchable by keyword–are currently provided for the period up to 1840, with further releases planned throughout the year. The site includes an interactive timeline and drawings by Queen Victoria , selections from her sketchbooks and a number of essays about aspects of Queen Victoria's life, authored by Sir Roy Strong, Laurence Goldman and Peter Ward-Jones among others.

Box of Broadcasts - new electronic resource

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:50:00 +0000

The Library has subscribed to Box of Broadcasts (BoB), an off-air recording and media archive service. The archive currently offers over 45,000 TV and radio programmes covering all genres.

The BoB TV scheduling service allows users to record TV and radio programmes that are scheduled to be broadcast over the next seven days as well as retrieving programmes from the last seven days from a selected list of recorded channels. After a programme is recorded users can stream a Flash video in a web page - in a similar way to BBC's iPlayer.

BoB stores recorded TV and Radio programmes in an archive. Users can record programmes, watch programmes from the archive, create clips, search for programmes coming up in the next seven days by title or keyword, compile their favourite shows into playlists and share these with others.

Access to Box of Broadcasts is available on campus and also off campus within the UK. Programmes may be played to groups on Brookes premises only and only for teaching purposes. Programmes viewed off-campus are strictly for use in the course of study.

Access is available via the Databases pages on the library website: http://opac.brookes.ac.uk/www-bin/ejnls?D Select B and scroll down for Box of Broadcasts. Users need to use their Athens account and first time users need to register - there are further details on the Database page including a link to a guide.

Vacation Loans over the Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:43:00 +0000

From Thursday 10 May Research students ( MPhil and Phd ) and Staff will be able to borrow books over the Summer until Friday 21st September. Remember you can renew your books in person, by phone or online - click the 'My Loans and Reservations option' on the Catalogue to renew online.

Do be aware that these loans are subject to recall - if any of your loans is reserved by another user we will email you on your Brookes email. You will have two weeks from the recall date to return the book. Fines will be charged for late returns.

The Cause Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:29:00 +0000

The Cause Papers Database is an online searchable catalogue of more than 14,000 cause papers relating to cases heard between 1300 and 1858 in the Church Courts of the diocese of York: http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/causepapers The original records are held in the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York. They are the most extensive records of their kind in the United Kingdom. They are a very valuable resource for family and local historians and scholars interested in social, ecclesiastical, economic and legal history.
You can browse the contents of the database or use the basic and advanced search functions to search by keyword or look for information about people or places involved in the cases.

Research Training - library sessions to support your research

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:53:00 +0000

The Library is offering a number of drop-in sessions specifically for researchers this semester. All sessions take place in the Headington Library Training Room, 12.00 - 13.00. There is no need to book. You can also contact your Subject Librarian for specialist help, details are available at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/substaff.html

Information at your desktop : finding your way around the Electronic Library

This session provides details of the range of electronic resources available at your desktop, including electronic journals, journal collections, databases and reference resources:

Tuesday 7 February and Friday 2 March.

Keeping up-to-date - Keep abreast of new research and development in your subject area: find out how to keep up-to-date with new publications in journals, books, conferences and more; track your research using the Web of Science citation indexes:

Thursday 23 February and Friday 9 March.

The library is also offering a range of EndNote sessions this semester. EndNote is a reference management service. Further details, including training dates, are available at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/endnote.html

EndNote Training - EndNote sessions in the library

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:44:00 +0000

The Library is offering a number of training sessions on EndNote reference management service. All sessions take place in the Headington Library Training Room, 12-1. There is no need to book.

Introduction to EndNote Web - these sessions cover the basics of getting started with EndNote Web, including adding references both manually and automatically:
Thursday 10 February; Tuesday 15 February; Thursday 3 March; Wednesday 16 March; Monday 4 April.

An introduction to the key features of EndNote X5: Thursday 29 March
EndNote X5 is the latest desktop version of EndNote which is available on all the university networked pcs. It includes more enhanced features than the Web version

EndNote drop-in sessions: to help you with your EndNote (desktop or Web) questions and problems. Bring along any queries you have and a copy of your EndNote library and associated Word documents - there will be an opportunity to do some practical work:
Tuesday 28 February or Monday 19 March.

Royal Society's historical journal archive - free to access

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:14:00 +0000

The Royal Society's historical journal archive is now permanently free to access http://royalsocietypublishing.org/search The archive includes the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal. Around 60,000 historical scientific papers are accessible via a fully searchable online archive with papers published more than 70 years ago now becoming freely available.

The archive includes Isaac Newton’s first published scientific paper,and geological work by a young Charles Darwin

EThos - UK E-Theses Online Service

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:05:00 +0000

EThOs is the UK's Electronic theses Online Service. Over 52,000 full-text theses are now available for free download, and 300,000 records of UK doctoral theses available for searching. EThOs is available at http://ethos.bl.uk/ You do need to register if you want to download or order a thesis - follow the link on the site to Login/Register.

You can also follow links to a free open access copy available direct from the awarding institution; order a digital copy of a paper thesis or contact the awarding institution’s library to find out how to view a copy.

British Library events

noreply@blogger.com (Helen) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:50:00 +0000

The British Library is hosting a series of free events for first year PhD students. These events are specially tailored free days of talks, workshops and networking opportunities at the Library, focusing on specific subjects: History, English and Social Sciences.

Each day includes a general introduction to relevant research sources, curator talks and workshops, and details on how to get a Reader Pass. Students from outside London may apply for a limited number of travel bursaries.

More details, including an online booking facility are available at: http://www.bl.uk/HEtrainingdays