Library website migration

The Library webpages have moved over to the University’s new content management system (CMS) – you may already be familiar with the new interface as many areas of the University website have already been migrated.

Partial image of the new Library website.

The migration means that the look and feel of our webpages have changed, but access to all our guidance, resources and other information should remain available. If you can’t find the information you’re looking for, please email us at library@reading.ac.uk so that we can help you stay on track with all your information needs.

Your Library team

Far-Right Groups in America – trial access

Shelves in an archive with boxes of documentsThe Library currently has a trial to ‘Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right Groups in America’.

This online collection of primary source material adds to our existing access to ‘Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right and Left Political Groups in the U.S., Europe, and Australia in the Twentieth Century‘ and focuses on white supremacist and nationalist groups in the U.S. The archive includes pamphlets, newsletters and propaganda.

Access to Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right Groups in America is now available on- and off-campus until 19 November.

To narrow down to only the new content, please go to the ‘Advanced Search’ option and select Far-Right Groups in America in the ‘By Archive’ box under ‘Search Limiters’.

Help us to decide

Please send any feedback about this resource to Charlie Carpenter, Academic Liaison Librarian for History: c.a.carpenter@reading.ac.uk

Sophie Dorman, E-resources Team

Politics – scholarly and current

We currently have a trial to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.

It provides access to in-depth articles on Politics which are continuously updated by the world’s leading scholars and researchers, and also feature embedded multimedia content. Broad subject headings range from ‘Political philosophy’ to ‘Contentious politics and political violence’. newspapers

Access to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics is now available off-campus until 12 November

Help us to decide

If you have any comments about this resource, please send your feedback to Charlie Carpenter, Academic Liaison Librarian for the School of Humanities: c.a.carpenter@reading.ac.uk

Lindsay Warwick, E-resources Team

How the other half lived – Country Life Archive database trial

Interested in the culture and lifestyle of the British upper classes from 1897 to 2005? We have a trial to the archive of Country Life magazine until 4 June. Find out more about fine art and architecture, the great country houses, society news, and rural living throughout the 20th century. All pages are searchable and reproduced in full colour.

Access to the Country Life Archive is now available on- and off-campus until 4 June.

Help us to decide

Please send any feedback about this e-resource to Charlie Carpenter, Academic Liaison Librarian for History (c.a.carpenter@reading.ac.uk).

Sophie Dorman, E-resources Team

A world of exploration on your screen

A pile of globes

We currently have a trial to The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) online archive. A large number of the archives from the UK’s learned society for geography and professional body for geographers have been digitised. Spanning 1478 to 1953, the archive contains more than 150,000 maps, charts and atlases, complemented by manuscripts, field notes, expedition reports, scrapbooks, correspondence, diaries, illustrations, and sketches. Books, diaries and photographs from some of the foremost geographers and explorers are included, such as Gertrude Bell, John Hanning Speke, David Livingstone, Robert Falcon Scott, Richard Francis Burton, Ernest Shackleton, and Edmund Hillary. The archive is likely to be of interest to those studying/researching many different subject areas, ranging from Geography to Post-Colonial & De-Colonization Studies.

Access to The Royal Geographical Society Online Archive is available on- and off-campus until Thursday 10 December.

Please send any feedback you may have to Charlie Carpenter, Academic Liaison Librarian for History, at c.a.carpenter@reading.ac.uk.

Sophie Dorman, E-resources Team

COVID-19 update: additional online resources for homeworking

Open laptopTo support students temporarily unable to access their library’s print holdings during the Covid-19 situation, several publishers have responded by temporarily making certain resources free or extending access over the next few months. We’ve been signing up to many of these offers to provide you with extra material, in addition to our usual e-resources.

To explore resources relevant to your subject, go to the new ‘COVID-19’ tab in your own subject guide. This is provided by your subject’s Academic Liaison Librarian and will be regularly updated.

Alternatively, browse a list of items already set up below:

New resources and extended access

New resources

We now have access to the following new resources (please note that some content on these resources already falls within our subscriptions):

Please log into these via the institutional login, and check your subject guide for details on how long they are active for.

Extended access

Extended access is also available for the following platforms:

  • Box of Broadcasts is now available anywhere in the EU, not just in the UK!
  • Many books we have bought through Ebook Central are providing access to more users at once for e-books which previously were limited to a few users at a time

Further information

For further information, please contact us online:

Look out for further Library service updates on the Library websiteUniversity Library News blog, Twitter and Facebook.

Sophie Dorman and Lindsay Warwick, Collections Team 

Churchill Archive – trial access available

A black and white image of Winston ChurchillThe Library currently has a trial to the online Churchill Archive – try it now! Access is available until 21st December.

The archive consists of more than 800,000 pages of original documents, produced between 1874 and 1965, ranging from Winston S. Churchill’s personal correspondence to his official exchanges with kings, presidents, politicians, and military leaders. There is a video tour of the archive available here.

Access is available on-campus and off-campus.

Help us to decide

Please let Charlie Carpenter, Academic Liaison Librarian for History, know what you think of the archive at c.a.carpenter@reading.ac.uk

Sophie Dorman, E-resources Team

Cuban Culture – trial access to archive

Try out the archive of Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations now! We have trial access until 22 March.

This primary source collection from 1959 onward is split into two parts, covering the culture and cultural relations of Revolutionary Cuba and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Part 1, “Casa y cultura”, provides unique access to 45,000 documents, covering almost 60 years of cultural relations between Revolutionary Cuba and abroad.

This is available on-campus and off-campus.

Part 2, Writers, provides access to more than 63,800 digital files and records on 1,046 writers and artists .

This is also available on-campus and off-campus.

Help us to decide

Please send any comments on this resource to Katie Winter, Liaison Librarian for Modern Languages and European Studies – k.l.winter@reading.ac.uk.

Katie Winter, Trainee Liaison Librarian

Try out a new census and socio-economic data service

Digimap, the online map and data delivery service, has a new trial service available. In addition to Ordnance Survey, Historic, Geology, Aerial, Environment, Marine and Global, we now have access to Society Digimap.

Society Digimap

Society Digimap example

Digimap Society logoSociety Digimap provides a wealth of census and socio-economic data for Great Britain. Although census data is available through the UK Data Service, the processing required to show census and other demographic datasets on a map can be a barrier to use for many interested in the value of the datasets. By providing these datasets as layers to visualise along with high quality Ordnance Survey data, users can access this rich information source to gain valuable insights for their areas of interest without the need to learn how to use a GIS.

Over 40 layers of data from a range of Census 2011 data, broadband availability and Output Area Classification (OAC) are available. Initially this can be mapped using a Roam mapper, but a download facility is also planned.

Is this service useful?

If you are using or planning to use this service in your teaching or research, please let us know! The trial is available until 31 July 2019.  Please send any feedback about it to Judith Fox, Digimap Site Representative.

Judith Fox, Map Librarian

Keep it real with Sage business cases

Laptop, business chartsSAGE Business Cases can be used to see how business works in real life. Put the theories to the test and learn from the successes and failures of real companies in these case studies. Choose from over 1000 business cases.

This trial is available on- and off-campus until 30th March.

Help us to decide

Please send your feedback on this resource to Karen Drury and Ruth Ng, Management and Accounting Liaison Librarians – karenandruth@reading.ac.uk.

 Eóin Davies, E-resources Team

New architecture resource – try it now!

Eiffel towerTry out Art and Architecture Complete and let us know what you think.

This database for the study of art and architecture provides easy access to academic journals, magazines, trade publications and books. It includes full-text coverage for hundreds of journals with some dating back to 1937.

The trial is available both on- and off-campus and will last until 25 November.

Let us know what you think!

Please send your comments on this resource to the Architecture Liaison Librarian, Helen Hathaway. Email: h.m.hathaway@reading.ac.uk.

Jackie Skinner, Library Web Manager