Politics: Databases

Mass Observation Project: Series II & III (1990s/2000s) now available

The New York Review of Books Archive – newly expanded coverage

At the request of colleagues in SALC, the Library has recently arranged for electronic access to the New York Review of Books archive (ISSN: 0028-7504). Founded in 1963 and more familiarly known as the NYRB, the semi-monthly magazine and its articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs has from its outset punched with significant cultural weight. Aptly summarised in the 2017 obituary of its legendary editor, Bob Silvers, as “the standard bearer for American intellectual life: a unique repository of thoughtful discourse, unrepentantly highbrow, in a culture increasingly given to dumbing down.” Indeed, the “lively literary disputes” conducted in the 'letters to the editor' column of the NYRB have been flagged by The Washington Post as "the closest thing the intellectual world has to bare-knuckle boxing.“

Whether this played a part in the periodical being almost certainly the only one documented on celluloid by Martin Scorsese is moot (2013’s The Fifty Year Argument), but the NYRB remains an independent inter-disciplinary journal of interest and provocation across and beyond the arts and social sciences. Ready electronic access includes current issues and the wealth of its backfiles will be of particular benefit to researchers in History, English and American Studies, Politics, Sociology, Art History, Music and the culturally engaged.

London Evening Standard Archive:

Print culture remains integral to both teaching and research by staff and students at all levels of study, particularly in relation to press coverage of specific events as the issue of mediatisation becomes ever more pertinent within education. Accordingly, and in collaboration with academic colleagues in the humanities, the Library has arranged for the purchase of the London Evening Standard archive, which extends from its first publication in May 1827 to effectively the present day (within 1 week). Although this resource is patently of value to researchers looking at aspects of British history, politics and culture, it’s worth noting that the newspaper not only employed a wealth of foreign correspondents, but from the 1980s to 2010 it became the only paid for London evening paper – endowing it with particular significance to those undertaking work on culture in that time frame from disciplines in the social sciences such as politics and social statistics and social change.

Serving as a central access point for the paper’s evolution through variant titles, the database also allows searching across the ProQuest hosting platform which encompasses a number of other historical newspapers for additional - often more generalised – perspectives on topics. Available material incorporates news articles, photos, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, cartoons (including the renowned contributions of David Low) and more. The Evening Standard’s place “at the heart of the British Empire, tucked under the arm of the British government, and wrapping the chips of the common Londoner” offers clear and fruitful scope for interrogation and re-interpretation today. The near two centuries of coverage allow researchers to trace the historical treatment of a variety of themes with the likes of observations on London fogs in the 1880s reminding us that environmental issues are not confined to any one generation. User-friendly support and indexing tools facilitate such research, with hit-term highlighting, searchable PDFs, and image downloads in PDF format.