Social Anthropology: Databases

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.

Refugees, Relief and Resettlement

A key resource for the study of forced migration and the history of refugees, this collection collates materials from a wide range of sources including the U.K. National Archives, the British Library, World Jewish Relief, and the US Department of State. 

Refugees, Relief and Resettlement comprises two parts addressing refugee crises across different chronological periods. The first part, Forced Migration and World War II, focuses on refugees and displaced persons across Europe, North Africa, and Asia from 1935 to 1950. The second part, The Early Cold War and Decolonization, examines the changes effected by the Cold War and the decolonisation of, and rise of independence movements within, the nations of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This series offers a wealth of primary sources including legal briefs, refugee reports, and government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and letters. 

Refugees, Relief and Resettlement addresses an ongoing global issue and is of value to students and researchers across a range of disciplines and research groups including Migration, Refugees and Asylum, Humanitarian and Conflict Response and Histories of Humanitarianism. This new addition enriches our collections of primary source materials in this challenging research area. These include both digital resources such as Border and Migration Studies (part of the Global Issues Library) and Post-war Europe: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement, 1945-1950, and the physical materials housed within our pioneering Humanitarian Archive  at the Rylands. In addition, it aligns with the University's ongoing commitment as a University of Sanctuary.  

Global Issues Library

Global Issues Library is an extensive resource examining major societal challenges such as migration, preservation of human rights, security, and environmental issues. It provides diverse content, such as reports, essays, and letters, documentaries, photographs, and case studies to help analyse historical and current events. Curated by scholars worldwide, it takes an interdisciplinary approach encompassing historical, political, sociological, anthropological and ethical perspectives. Collections include:

• Border And Migration Studies 
• Contemporary Global Issues 
• Engineering Case Studies 
• Environmental Issues  
• Human Rights Studies  
• Mass Incarceration and Prison Studies 
• Revolution and Protest  
• Security Issues  
• Trade And Globalization Studies  

This extensive multidisciplinary resource is a valuable resource for teaching and research across Geography, Global Development, Humanitarian and Conflict Response, Politics, Sociology, and Earth and Environmental Sciences. It also aligns closely with the University's Social Responsibility and sustainable development goals.

EBSCO Magazines Archive

The Library has recently secured online access to a significant archival collection of American-based general magazines.  

Renowned for their high-quality photography, impeccable production, and trend-setting design and editorial styles, these collections will hold significant historical value to social and cultural historians, as well as interdisciplinary research groupings across the Humanities. The Centre for the Study of Sexuality and Culture and the Centre for the Cultural History of War will also benefit.   

Accessible on Library Search, the archives are hosted by EBSCO, through which researchers already have access to the Time magazine archives.   

The seven new collections comprise: 

• The Atlantic Magazine (1857 - 2014): Researchers can access primary source material on alternative journalism, addressing activism, the arts, economy, environment and politics. 
• Ebony (1945 - 2014): The most influential African American general interest magazine, articles cover African American culture, business, Civil rights, and entertainment.
• Esquire (1933 - 2014): Valuable to researchers looking at 20th-Century current events, gender issues, politics and advertising, Esquire also published work by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, fostered the development of the ‘New Journalism’ in the 1960s, and provided early support for the ‘dirty realism’ literary movement of the 1980s. 
• Life (1936 - 2000): This iconic US magazine chronicled the major events of the 20th century and largely defined photojournalism.
• Sports Illustrated (1954 - 2000): These archives chronicle the evolving role of sports in US culture, from polo and boating to American football and basketball. 
• The Nation (1865 - 2020): America’s oldest weekly magazine was sponsored by Emerson, Longfellow, and Beecher Stowe, its roots stretching back to the Abolitionist movement.
• Vanity Fair (1919-1936; 1983-2000): Access has been extended to the publication's literary interwar years. The magazine’s later years are valuable to researchers in fashion and marketing, as well as complementing our existing Women’s Wear Daily and Harper’s Bazaar archives on the ProQuest platform.  

AnthroSource

AnthroSource is a service of the American Anthropological Association that offers members and subscribing libraries full-text anthropological resources from the breadth and depth of the discipline. AnthroSource:

• is a digital searchable database containing the past, present and future AAA publications,
• provides more than 250,000 articles from AAA journals, newsletters, bulletins and monographs in a single place, and
• offers 24/7 access to scientific research information across the field of anthropology.

Featured journals include: City & Society, Transforming Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology and Visual Anthropology Review (plus many more).

Black Thought & Culture

A key digital resource for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art, Black Thought and Culture covers some 250 years of history centred on the non-fiction writings of major American black figures and leaders. Hosted by Alexander Street Press, the database has sought to provide as comprehensive a collection as possible of the principals involved, which has led to the digitisation of much previously inaccessible and scarce material - in formats as diverse as letters, speeches, essays, leaflets, periodicals, interviews, and court transcripts. Beginning with the works of Frederick Douglass, contributors include W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes,, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Amira Baraka, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Houston Baker, Jesse Jackson, Ida B. Wells, Bobby Seale, and many others. 

These new holdings complement other extant Library resources which incorporate material on and the legacies of the Black experience in the USA, in particular the post-1960 resources on anti-racist activism and social justice campaigning housed at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE (Race Archives and Community Engagement) Centre. In addition to free text searching, a range of topic and themed searches - from sharecropping to segregation and from Négritude to the NAACP - are offered through a comprehensive index, whilst a number of full text survey works are also hosted. The collection also includes biographical essays by leading scholars and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.

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.