Guides and databases: History: Databases

Key databases for finding journal articles

America: History and Life
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to EBSCOhost. Complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Bibliography of British and Irish History
Index to literature on British and Irish history from the Roman period to the present day. Formerly known as Royal Historical Society Bibliography.
Chicano Database
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to EBSCOhost. Database focusing on the Mexican-American and Chicano experience, as well as the broader Latino experience of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans and Central American immigrants. Explores the broad dimensions of class, race and gender within the Chicano and Latino U.S. experience.
Historical Abstracts
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to EBSCOhost. This database can be accessed by no more than 6 users at a time. Complete reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excl. the United States and Canada - see America: History and Life).
International Medieval Bibliography
Index of literature on all subjects relating to the Middle Ages, within the date range 400-1500 AD. Geographical areas covered are Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
PRISMA Database
A comprehensive reference resource providing more than hundred full-text scholarly journals with articles in the social sciences and humanities for the interdisciplinary academic study of Hispanic and Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. It offers key titles in English, Spanish and Portuguese indexed in the Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI).
SCOPUS
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to Scopus. Multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources. Please use IE 8 or higher, Google Chrome or Firefox browsers.

Key databases for primary sources

A primary source is a first-hand expression or evidence of an event or experience. This evidence can be in the form of the written word, images, artefacts, film or sound recordings, and will have been created at some point during the lifetime of the person involved. Using primary sources in your research adds context and credibility to your argument. Primary sources will vary depending upon what is being studied.

British History Online
Digital library of some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Covers administrative and legal, ecclesiastical and religious, economic, intellectual, scientific, cultural, local, parliamentary, urban and metropolitan history.
English Historical Documents Online
English Historical Documents Online contains over 5,500 expertly indexed and fully searchable primary documents from 500-1914.
Mass Observation Online
Featuring, amongst other material, original manuscript and typescript papers from the Mass Observation organisation. The archive was developed to create an 'anthropology of ourselves' and study the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. Accessibility statement for Mass Observation Online.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource includes unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice. Accessibility statement for Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice.
Victorian Popular Culture
Focused on popular entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is divided into 4 sections: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema

Key databases for newspaper archives

Civil War: Antebellum to Reconstruction
Featuring more than 150 newspapers from all regions of the United Statesplus approximately 50,000 government documents and 4,000 rare broadsides and pieces of ephemera. This diverse collection of primary materials provides unprecedented local and national coverage of American culture, politics and society from 1840-1877 a tumultuous time that redefined a nation
Gale Primary Sources
Cross search many of Gale Cengage's databases in one platform
Nexis
Access for UCL students and staff only. Database of news and company information (formerly provided as LexisNexis 'Executive').
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Search the historical archive of The Guardian, The Observer, The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times‎, The South China Morning Post, The Korea Times, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of India and 31 major American newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and the Chinese Newspapers collection. Click on 'Change Databases' and scroll down to see which titles are selected for searching

Key databases for official publications

Colonial State Papers
Colonial State Papers provides access to thousands of papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
Documents on British Policy Overseas
This historical collection gathers together tens of thousands of UK Government documents relating to Britains international relations, including foreign policy instructions, letters and memos, business reports, and more. These primary source materials have been selected by the official historians of Britains Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and, in many cases, have been declassified at their request for inclusion in this series.
UK Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest)
Full text of all papers issued by the House of Commons from 1715-present (with supplementary material back to 1688), House of Lords and Public Petitions to Parliament. These are the working documents of government for all areas of social, political, economic, and foreign policy. Fully searchable digitized images of original documents. Accessibility statement for UK Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest).

Library Databases

Library databases A-Z
Browse or search our databases by title, or use the Subject drop down box at the top to narrow down to databases in your subject area.

What is a database?

Newspapers

The Library provides online access to many historic and current newspapers from around the world. You can access them by:

Searching by individual title in Explore.
Searching across collections using Newspaper collection databases.

Newspaper collections at UCL
Details on the many online newspapers to which UCL subscribes, and how UCL staff and students can find and access them.