LibGuides: History: Databases

Recommended databases

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Archive collections of full text electronic journals from 1880 onwards, always from volume 1, issue 1, and including previous and related titles. The most recently published issues (past 3-5 years) are not available in these collections (unless we hold a current subscription too). The Library subscribes only to the Arts & Sciences I to IX, inclusive, and the Health & General Sciences collections, as well as 19th Century British Pamphlets, a collection, created by RLUK (Research Libraries UK) and the Ireland collection (research materials relating to Ireland, spanning the 18th century to present, provided under the JISC Digitisation Programme). If you have any problem connecting to JSTOR off campus, please use the alternative link below.

Ithaka also continue to provide access to a number of freely available and open access resources which you may now search on Artstor and JSTOR. Even more content is available when you register to read – millions of articles from nearly 2,000 journals.
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Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Historical Abstracts with Full Text is a complete reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada).
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Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE Humanities Collection provides full-text online access to 164 humanities, arts, and social science journals from 60 scholarly publishers as well as links to Project MUSE content from databases such as America: History and life, Historical abstracts and JSTOR.
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Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains full text articles from over 5,800 journals, covering many subjects, including anthropology, politics, political science, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and social work. Coverage includes 450 magazines for news, current awareness and examples of professional practice.
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British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
British Periodicals traces the changing attitudes and assumptions of British writers over a period of 250 years. It consists of 460 historical periodical runs published from the 1680s to the 1930s. Topics covered include news and reviews on literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture. Hosted on the ProQuest integrated platform, other databases .
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Cambridge Core This link opens in a new window
Cambridge Core provides full text access for over two hundred journals published by Cambridge University Press in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Also available: access to Cambridge Journals Digital Archive (bought by JISC Collections) comprising 171 journals.
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John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new window
This collection is the product of a partnership between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest to conserve, catalogue and digitise over 65,000 documents printed between 1508–1939, drawn from the Bodleian’s John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. It depicts various aspects of everyday life in Britain in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The project was funded by the JISC and is available free of charge to colleges and universities in the UK.
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Migration to New Worlds
Focused on migration to the New World and Australasia during the ‘century of immigration’, this captivating, multi-archive collection provides a wide-ranging and in depth look at the emigration of peoples from Great Britain, mainland Europe and Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Nineteenth Century British Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
Over 25,000 digitised 19th century pamphlets held in UK research libraries archived on JSTOR by JISC. The collections focus on the political, economic and social issues that fuelled the great Parliamentary debates and controversies of the 19th century.
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Queen Victoria's Journals This link opens in a new window
This unique resource was developed in partnership by the Bodleian Libraries, the Royal Archives and ProQuest is now openly available. It contains all the personal journals of Queen Victoria (141 volumes and over 43,000 pages, currently for the period up to 1840 with further releases planned throughout this Diamond Jubilee year). The journals previously were only accessible by appointment at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. In addition to autograph diaries begun by the youthful Princess Victoria, there are edited versions from her later years, redacted and transcribed by the Queen’s daughter, Princess Beatrice. The site includes an interactive timeline, selections from Queen Victoria’s sketchbooks, and essays about aspects of Queen Victoria’s life, authored by Sir Roy Strong, Laurence Goldman and Peter Ward-Jones.
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Taylor & Francis Journals This link opens in a new window
Access to the full text articles of over 2,000 journals published by Taylor & Francis. Please note: a large selection of ebook titles are accessible on other platforms - please use Library Search to search for them (if you do not find the title you require use the Inter Library Loans service or contact your Subject Liaison Librarian for advice).
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UK Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window
JISC Collections has licensed the U.K. Parliamentary Papers in perpetuity and this is now freely available to all UK universities. The collection contains bibliographic records and searchable full text for House of Commons papers and Hansard reports printed between 1701-2003.
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Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A database with over 92 million records of journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters dating fro 1900 to present. It includes several indexing databases in one covering: Social sciences, Arts & Humanities, and Physical Sciences. An extremely good database to use if you aren't sure where to start.
This abstract only database is updated daily. Use Article Linker (AL) to access full-text of articles etc. (where subscriptions or Open Access allow).
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Wiley Online Library This link opens in a new window
Wiley's main publishing platform offering over 8 million articles from 1,600 journals covering Agriculture, Aquaculture & Food Science, Architecture & Planning, Art & Applied, Business, Economics, Finance & Accounting, Chemistry, Computer Science & Information Technology, Earth, Space & Environmental Sciences, Humanities, Law & Criminology, Life Sciences,
Mathematics & Statistics, Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry & Healthcare, Physical Sciences & Engineering, Psychology, Social & Behavioural Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine.
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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection This link opens in a new window
The newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757 - 1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media. The 700 or so bound volumes of newspapers and news pamphlets were published mostly in London, however there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India.
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British Library Newspapers 1800-1900 This link opens in a new window
British Library Newspapers Parts 1 and 2 1800-1900 is the most significant digital collection of British historic newspapers. provides access to approximately 70 national, regional and local 19th century British newspapers. New conservation and imaging techniques and a new cross-searchable platform adopted by the British Library offers unparalleled access and discoverability to this valuable historical and cultural archive. The content totals over three million pages and reflects the social and political developments of the time. Find influential national and regional newspapers representing different political and cultural segments of British society. Gale permits cross-searching of the majority of the British Library's collections of historical newspapers published between 1800 to 1900.
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OED: Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is an etymological dictionary which is widely acknowledged as the most comprehensive record of the English language, tracing the evolution and use of more than 600,000 words through 3 million quotations. OED Online gives access to latest text of the full Oxford English Dictionary, the Historical Thesaurus of the OED and enable users new ways to explore the English language: Search for new words by year, decade, or any date range. Set language in context: search by place, language type, and date to discover the impact of world events. OED Online is revised and updated at regular intervals and covers British, American, and other varieties of English, and all types of use, from formal to slang.

OUP offers another English dictionary on its Oxford Living Dictionaries platform but please note it has fewer definitions.
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Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 200 dictionaries and reference works published by Oxford University Press, spanning 25 different subject areas, bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias. Please note that the text of the full and definitive Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is not available via Oxford Reference Online. See its separate entry to access the latest edition of OED.
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Database search tips

Split your topic into keywords: To find better and fewer results, think about your keywords. Make sure they accurately describe what you are looking for, and add more keywords to make your search more specific.

Think of alternative keywords: For example, 'war' could also be referred to as 'conflict' or 'hostilities'. Or, think of the bigger picture. For example, instead of searching for 'soldiers' or 'combatants', try searching for 'military'.

Search for phrases in "double quotation marks": For example, "foreign policy". This will search for the phrase as a whole, instead of the individual words.

Select a data range: For example, you may only want literature published since 2010. Most databases have the option to select dates.

For more help see our Finding resources guide, or contact your Librarian.

Finding resources guide