| John Stoner's WWW Sources for British History |
This is a sampler of World Wide Web resources for the study of British history. It is a "sampler" because no claim to comprehensiveness is being made here. In addition, as this page is part of the larger Web site devoted to Web resources for the study of the history of the Celtic fringe--Ireland, Scotland, and Wales--as an integral part of British history, the purpose of this Web page is to complement and provide context for the resources listed on the other pages. This page contains annotated links to relevant Web resources organized into eight major categories (see the Table of Contents).A good brief survey of Britain is provided by City.net's United Kingdom Page. City.Net, a service of Excite, provides information on travel, entertainment, local business, government and community services for cities and countries world-wide. The service's United Kingdom page provides a good brief overview of current information sources on the Web related to the United Kingdom. See especially the entry from the CIA's 1995 World Factbook.
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- American and British History Resources on the Internet
- Rutgers University Libraries' History--American and British Web site is a compendium of Internet resources on British and American History.
- British and Irish History Documents and Web Sites
- A brief listing of Web sites and hypertext marked up documents relating to Irish and British history, this site is part of the larger Places on the World Wide Web for Historians, which is maintained as part of the History Program at California State University San Marcos.
- Early Modern England Source
- The site provides information concerning conferences, seminars, calls for papers, publications, resources for research and links to other sites relating to the history of early modern England. Especially useful are the following pages at this site: Recent and Forthcoming Publications, which includes bibliographies with links to expanded bibliographic records for the works cited and Research Resources, which provides links to archives, bibliographies, libraries, local history resources, records offices, electronic journals, electronic texts, electronic discussion lists, papers, and reviews. An excellent Web site and a very good starting place for locating Web resources on English history in the early modern period.
- Researchers in British and Irish History
- A list by time period of researchers and their researches related to British and Irish history. The list is maintained by the Institute for Historical Research.
- Yahoo's United Kingdom History
- By following Yahoo's subject hierarchy along the following path: Regional:Countries:United Kingdom:History, the searcher comes up with links to web sites relating to British history. While certainly not comprehensive, this Yahoo site provides a quick and easy introduction to Web sites on British history. A good starting place.
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- Isle of Man Home Page
- This Web site, created and maintained by C.C.S. & Associates, an Internet service and consultancy firm, provides historical, genealogical, geographical, cultural, and political information on the Isle of Man. This small Celtic nation, has, over the centuries, been ruled by the Vikings, Scotland, and England, with occasional incursions from Ireland and currently enjoys a uniquely independent relationship with the United Kingdom. Although the information here is brief, it supplies a good introduction to the Isle of Man's history.
- The Rural History Centre
- A department of the University of Reading, the Rural History Centre supports academic staff involved in teaching and research, mainly relating to the rural and agricultural history of Britain and Ireland. In addition, it houses important research collections which include an extensive collection of archives; a reference library; the Museum of English Rural Life; a photograph collection with over 1 million prints and negatives dating from the 19th century; and the Bibliography of British and Irish Rural History. The Web site provides mainly descriptions of the Centre's holdings and contact information for interested researchers.
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- Britain in the USA: Genealogical Research
- This site, part of the larger Britain in the USA Web site, provides information regarding official resources and private and commercial organizations providing access to genealogical information in Britain. The site provides brief descriptions of services, publications, contact information, and, when available, Web sites. The site covers England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
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- History of the United Kingdom--Primary Documents
- This Web site, which provides links to transcribed primary documents on British history which are available on the Web, is part of the larger Eurodocs site. This latter site, which is maintained by Richard Hacken at the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, provides links to Western European (mainly primary) historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated.
- Manuscript Sources for British History
- This Web document, authored by Richard Olney, provides a guide to manuscript sources for the study of British history. The guide, part of the Institute for Historical Research Web site's Electronic Publications page, provides an excellent overview of available original sources for the study of British history. Its appendices also provide information on secondary print, visual, and electronic resources for the study of British history. While not directly addressing the role of the Celtic fringe in British history, this is an excellent guide to both the craft and the sources for the study of British history. Also extremely useful is the Institute for Historical Research's Online Resources for Historians in the UK.
- Public Records Office
- The Public Record Office (PRO) is the repository of the national archives for England and Wales. It was founded by act of parliament in 1838 to bring together and preserve and provide access to the records of the central government and the courts of law. The records, beginning with Domesday Book in 1086, span the period from the eleventh to the twentieth centuries.
- Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts
- This Web site provides access to a number of the resources available through the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts of the United Kingdom. On the Other Useful Internet Sites page, go to the British National, Special and University Repositories section; the National Register of Archives page of this site provides telnet access to the National Register of Archives (NRA), a computerized database of information on the nature and locations of manuscript sources for British history; see also the Archivists' Information Page and the Researchers' Information Page. This meta-site is an essential Web resource for students of British history.
- UK Archival Repositories on the Internet
- This is a section of the Archives on the Web site, which is intended to act as a pointer to a number of archival repositories and professional associations that have posted information onto the World Wide Web. This site was originally produced as part of a Master degree project in Archives Administration at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at the University College London and is maintained by Simon Wilson, at Liverpool University.
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- Bibliography of British Mining History
- This site provides bibliographies of theses, books, and papers on the history of mining in Britain, including the Celtic fringe. This is part of the larger Mining History Network Web Site. The MHN Web site was designed and is maintained by Ray Burnley with Professor Roger Burt at the University of Exeter.
- British History
- The British History Web page of the Catalogue of New Books and Books in Print of the School of Advanced Study, an institution within the University of London which brings together the specialized scholarship and resources of nine postgraduate research institutes in the humanities and social sciences.
- British History
- A 1994 subject guide to library sources on British history at the University of Saskatchewan Libraries.
- The British Isles: A History of Four Nations
- A summary and review of Hugh Kearney's work on the history of the British Isles. This document is part of the Web site of Cambridge University Press, which publishes this work.
- England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland
- This site provides a listing of sources on England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland during the medieval period which are available in the Green Library at Stanford University. It is part of a much larger Web site pointing to library and Web resources maintained by The Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SUL/AIR).
- The Political Development of the British Isles, 1100-1400
- A brief review of University of Durham Robin Frame's history of the British Isles during the medieval period, with particular emphasis on the histories of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. This review is part of the Web site of Oxford University Press USA, which publishes Frame's study.
- Queen's University Libraries British History
- This is a selected guide to important sources on British History in the Stauffer Library Information/Reference collection. The Stauffer Library is one of the Queen's University Libraries, Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada. While specific to the holdings of this library, the sources can be searched for at other repositories. In addition, the site contains useful guidance on reading and research in history (see for example Evaluating Information and Approaches to Research).
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- H-ALBION WWW Site
- H-ALBION is a member of the H-NET Humanities Online initiative. H-ALBION, an electronic discussion list, encourages scholarly discussion of British and Irish history and makes available bibliographical, research, teaching aids, scholarly reviews of books and monographs central to the field, and to other WWW sites of interest to subscribers and browsers. This is probably the most academically rigorous of Web sites containing information and links related to British history. Follow especially the following links: Review Project, Resources, and Internet Links (NOTE: there is a mirror gopher site which may be consulted as well and it appears that the contents of the Web and gopher site may not be exact duplicates of one another; for instance, see the Gopher Bibliographies page and compare it to the main Web Bibliographies page).
- LISZT Directory of E-MAIL Discussion Groups
- A searchable directory of over 40,000 electronic mailing lists. A search under the word "British" retrieved 47 relevant electronic discussion lists. Depending on the areas of your interests in the Celtic fringe in Britain, this is an excellent starting point for discovering relevant electronic discussion lists.
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- Britannia Internet Magazine's History and Mythology Page
- The history section of Britannia Internet Magazine. This site contains a number of excellent resources; particularly relevant to the Celtic fringe in British history are the Brief Historical Outline, Pre-History and Roman Britain, and History & Links.
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- Blackwell's on the Internet
- This site provides access to the print resources available for sale by Blackwell's Bookshops, one of the major academic book sellers, originally established in Oxford more than 100 years ago. The sites BookSearch form allows the user to search using either author, title, publisher, ISBN number, or subject, or a combination of any of these. For the student of the history of the Celtic fringe, the easiest approach is simply to scroll down in the subject field, select "History" and then click on the "Go" button. This will retrieve a screen with another scrollable field--just scroll down in the sub-subject field and highlight the appropriate sub-category (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, etc.) and click on the "Go" button. A list of relevant sources will be retrieved--just click on any of the entries for further information about the book (be aware that this database also allows you to order books as well as browse information about them).
- Combined AAUP Online Catalog/Bookstore
- This site provides access to the Combined AAUP (Association of American University Presses) Online Catalog/Bookstore's database. The AAUP Catalog can be easily searched in a variety of ways, such as by author, title, and standard Library of Congress subject keywords. For the students of the history of the Celtic fringe in British history, probably the most useful method is to use the Searching Subject Category: History form. Just type in the name of the country (Wales, Scotland, Ireland, etc.) in the box following the "What would you like to search for?" prompt and submit your query (again, be aware that this database also allows you to order books as well as browse information about them). Besides providing combined access to the books of all participating AAUP members, the catalog offers links to the individual on-line catalogs of more than 40 scholarly presses at other sites. An essential meta-site for finding print sources on the Celtic fringe in British history.
- History Data Unit Home Page
- The History Data Unit (HDU) is located at the Economic and Social Research Council Data Archive at the University of Essex and is the national center in England for the preservation and supply of historical data held in computer-readable form. The Web page provides descriptions of the HDU holdings and provides access to BIRON, the archive's online catalog and subject index
- History Titles: University of Cambridge Press
- This site contains links to titles in the field of history published by the University of Cambridge Press. A number are relevant to the study of British history. This site is part of the larger Humanities and Social Sciences listing, which in turn is part of the on-line catalog browse list available at the Cambridge University Press North American Branch home page. As with the other publishers' databases, this database also allows you to order books as well as browse information about them.
- Portico
- This Web site provides access to Portico, the British Library's Online Information Server. Portico provides access to information about all aspects of the services and collections of the United Kingdom's national library.
- Social Science Information Gateway
- The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) at the University of Bristol provides access to information sources in the social sciences over the Web. All of the resources that appear on the Gateway have been described, classified and entered into a keyword searchable database. See UK Resources on SOSIG.
- The UK Web Library - WWLib
- This Web site is a searchable, classified catalogue of WWW pages at sites in the United Kingdom organized using Version 20 of the Dewey Decimal Classification widely used in libraries. The catalogue can be searched using a keyword search interface or a Dewey decimal number search interface.
- United Kingdom University Web Sites
- This site, maintained at the University of Birmingham, provides access to University Web sites in the United Kingdom.
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LIS 190: The Web as a Research Tool
Celtic Fringe Home Page
WWW Sources for British History
WWW Sources for Irish History
WWW Sources for Scottish History
WWW Sources for Welsh History