Library Guide - Heritage

The library has plenty of texts which explore topics in heritage. These are located in several places according to subject:

062 - Conservation and Restoration

069 - Museums

338 - Heritage Tourism

363.69 - Historic Buildings and Heritage

411 - Palaeography

560 - Palaeontology

709 - Art History 

913, 930 - Archaeology 

942 - Archives and Local History

It can seem complicated at first, but it follows the Dewey System.  Remember to check the different areas housing the 7-day loan and 4-week loans.

The library has hundreds of relevant e-books which you can access by logging into your account on Library Search. Simply limit your results in the left-hand pane of the search screen to e-books and click on the Link to CCCU e-book to download or read online.

The Library also has e-book collections and reference titles available via the Find Databases A to Z link on Library Search. Remember to log in to Library Search to access the full text:

Cambridge Core - Cambridge Core is the platform for Cambridge University Press's academic content.

Early European Books – works printed in Europe before 1701.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) -titles published between 1473 and 1700. See guide to EEBO for more information.

JSTOR – access to thousands of e-books. Log in via your institution and use an advanced search to limit to books on your topic.

Manchester Hive - Access to around 2000 titles published by Manchester University Press 

Manchester Medieval Sources Online (via Manchester Hive) – book chapters and journal articles. Limit by “User-accessible content” or “open access content” to see material available to you.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – The people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond.

Journals (also known as Periodicals) are similar to magazines in that they are published regularly but are written by academics and researchers rather than journalists. The subject matter can be very detailed but will be rigorously researched and backed up with evidence. The hallmark of a good journal will be footnotes or in-text citations and a bibliography of reading to evidence research. They are also often peer-reviewed which means they have been through a thorough editorial process. You can find print copies of journals on the 2nd floor of Augustine House in the silent zone located near the lifts. These are for use in the library only. Why not take a peek at The Historical Journal or Britannia: a journal of Romano-British and kindred studies ?

As well as scholarly journals the library also has copies of the Historical Association newsletter HA News and the popular history magazine History Today.

The Library provides access to online journals such as Heritage, Heritage Science and Heritage and Society. To find out more about online journals published in the discipline of history, you can use an app such as Browzine. Not only does it store all your favourite journals, it enables you to easily find and read the most recent issue from your mobile device (and store them in a bibliographic management tool such as Zotero or Mendeley).

Finding journal articles by topic

Sometimes you may want to look for journal articles on a specific topic, such as archaeology in Kent or green heritage. You don’t have to browse for articles using Browzine, but can use a search engine such as the CCCU search tool Library Search or alternatively Google Scholar. Both are good, but they have different functions and it is important to be aware of that. Google Scholar searches scholarly material, but you may not be able to access all of the material whereas Library Search is linked to the CCCU journal subscriptions. Run a quick search in Library Search to find full-text journal articles using key words or phrases connected with your research topic e.g. “Dover Bronze Age Boat” or “Museums and wellbeing”. Then limit your results to the Digital Resources tab. You can read the Library Search quick guide for more information.

JSTOR is also a popular journal database which provides access to past issues of journals. 

You can find the following newspaper collections via the Find databases A to Z link on LibrarySearch. Remember to log in to Library Search with your computing username and password to gain full access:

British Library Newspapers -  influential national and regional newspapers representing the different political and cultural segments of Britain from 1732 to 1950.

British Periodicals – periodical press, strong on popular culture and political satire.

Europeana Newspaper Collection – historic newspapers from across Europe.

Gale Primary Sources includes the 17th and 18th century Burney collection, 19th century British library newspapers,19th century UK periodical collection and The Times Digital Archive 1785-2013.

Google Newspaper Archive

Illustrated London News (1842-2003) - With its debut in 1842, The Illustrated London News became the world's first fully illustrated weekly newspaper, marking a revolution in journalism and news reporting. The publication presented a vivid picture of British and world events, including news of war, disaster, ceremonies, the arts, and science. 

LexisLibrary Newspapers (UK) – 1982 to current.

Times Digital Archive

UK Press Online – 1930-40 Fascist Press Archive

Use the specialist databases via the Find databases link in LibrarySearch for a more advanced search of the academic literature available to you.

The following are useful databases for your subject.

AM Explorer - a collection of primary source material for social sciences and humanities, spanning the 15th – 21st centuries, themes include : Borders and Migrations, Gender and Sexuality, Global History, and War and Conflict.

Art Full Text - a database of creative arts research. Subject coverage includes: archaeology, art history, digital media, games design, graphic arts, photography, film, radio and television.

Artstor - collections of high-quality images, curated from leading museums and archives around the world.

Bibliography of British and Irish History - includes material on British and Irish History from 55 BC to the present. You can find videos and advice on how to search the bibliography via the Institute of Historical Research.

JSTOR - a full-text archive of scholarly journals, dating from the first issue up until two to five years ago, with over 330 journal titles relevant to History. 

Project MUSE - includes material from US university presses such as John Hopkins, Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina.

SCOPUS - includes material on cultural heritage, historic preservation and archaeology.

Web of Science - includes the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, which searches references (otherwise known as citations) to published journal articles. Clicking on the ‘Find it’ button will then redirect you to the full text if it is available on another of our subscribed databases.

Please note you will be able to access the full text of many of the articles you find when searching the databases but will not be able to read the full text of all the results you find. If you need a journal article that the university doesn’t subscribe to, try document delivery.

There are a lot of brilliant websites that may be relevant to your studies, but there are also many that are not, so it is essential to evaluate the material carefully to decide whether they are scholarly enough. Here are some recommended sites:

Archaeology Data Service - The digital repository for archaeology and heritage.

Archives and Records Association - professional body for the record-keeping sector.

Art UK - the online home for every public art collection in the UK.

Arts Council England - the national development agency for creativity and culture. 

Association of Critical Heritage Studies - a network of scholars and researchers working in the broad and interdisciplinary field of critical heritage.

British Library - Includes items in the Endangered Archive Programme.

British Museum - explore cultures across the Globe, from the dawn of human history to the present.

Collections Trust - helps museums work with the information that connects audiences and collections. Their standards and advice are used around the world to make museum collections accessible.

The Corpus of Anglo Saxon Stone Sculpture - identifies, records and publishes in a consistent format, English sculpture dating from the 7th to the 11th centuries. 

Curatorial Research Centre - The Curatorial Research Centre operated as an independent research and training agency from 2018 to 2023. It now operates as a blog.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport - supports culture, arts, media, sport, tourism and civil society.

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection – Stanford University’s historic map collection.

English Heritage - charity that cares for hundreds of historic sites in every corner of England.

Europeana - Europe's digital cultural heritage.

Frontiers in Digital Humanities - An interdisciplinary journal at the intersection of computer sciences and the humanities.

GEM - The Group for Education in Museums is for everyone interested in learning through museums, heritage and cultural settings. 

Heritage Open Days - England's largest festival of history and culture.

Historic England - the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.  

ICOM - International Council of Museums.

ICOMOS - international organisation dedicated to the conservation of the world's monuments and sites.

The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton - The collections include images and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century.

Museums Association - inclusive, participatory and sustainable museums at the heart of their communities.

Museum Data Service - A free new service that aims to connect and share all the object records across all UK museums, large and small.

Museum Development South East - supports and develops a thriving and inclusive museums sector which reflects the distinctive cultural heritage of the South East. 

National Archives -  the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, and for England and Wales. The guardians of over 1,000 years of iconic national documents.

National Lottery Heritage Fund - Heritage projects funding.

National Trust - protecting coastline, woodlands, countryside and hundreds of historic buildings, gardens and precious collections.

Society for Medieval Archaeology - established to study evidence of the past, whether standing buildings, landscapes, buried remains or artefacts in museums.

UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

V&A -  is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design.

Vision of Britain – A vision of Britain from 1801 to now. Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.

What is Intangible Heritage? - UNESCO site. Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants.

You can find the following digitised primary sources via the Find databases link in Library Search. Remember to log in to Library Search with your computing username and password:

British History Online is a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300-1800.

English Historical Documents Online contains over 5,500 fully searchable primary documents from 500-1914. Sources include government and cabinet proceedings, military dispatches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, personal and official letters and diaries.(also available in print in the Library)

HeinOnline – US Treaties, Statues, Pentagon Papers and Foreign Relations.

Historic Digimap Historical Ordnance Survey maps from the 1840s to the 1990s. .

John Johnson Collection A collection of printed Ephemera which offers a unique insight into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Categories include Nineteenth-Century Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions, and Advertising.

Mass Observation via AM Explorer. Research into everyday lives.

Medieval and Early Modern Sources (MEMSO) Essential resource for the study of Britain and its place in the world during the medieval and early modern period (c. 1100-1800). Includes the key printed sources for English, Irish, Scottish and Colonial history with original manuscripts. Please see the library guide to MEMSO for further help.

Migration to New Worlds – Discover the movement and memories of millions across two centuries of mass migration. This database can only be viewed on campus.

Nineteenth Century British Pamphlets (via JSTOR) Collection of 19th British pamphlets relating to the social, political and economic issues of the 19th century from the collections of seven UK universities.

Queen Victoria’s Journals Full text of Queen Victoria’s journal from 1832-1901.

Queer Pasts - primary source material for students and scholars of queer history and culture. The database uses “queer” in its broadest and most inclusive sense, to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and to include work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT. Each of the document collections in the database will include a critical introductory essay that helps explain the significance of the primary sources in historical terms and in relationship to previous scholarship.

UK Parliamentary Papers 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st-century papers, and the Hansard parliamentary debates.

The Mahoney Archive is a collection of fascist publications. Please arrange an appointment via the library point in Augustine House to use this collection.

The university also has a small collection of local studies material.

The Library has some great content to help you to become a critically-engaged historian. 

AM Research Methods - AM Research Methods is a platform that introduces humanities and social science students to the key approaches and methodologies of working with source material. Designed to be used in the classroom or for independent study, this resource will empower students to engage with primary sources and assess historical evidence with confidence. At the heart of Research Methods, you will find nearly 200 hundred essays, videos, "How to" guides and case studies by subject specialists which answer all of your questions about working with primary sources. From guidance on where you can find historical documents, to the questions you might want to pose and how best to approach analysing the content they hold, this platform gathers together practical advice and instruction from experts working around the world. These include: The History of Archiving and the Development of Archival Practice, Underrepresented Voices in the Archive, and video interviews from curators at some of the major UK archives.

Finding primary sources material online - a short introduction to the skills required to find primary source material online.

Sage Research Methods - SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. Nearly everyone at a university is involved in research, from students learning how to conduct research to faculty conducting research for publication to librarians delivering research skills training and doing research on the efficacy of library services. Although predominantly covering social sciences, the resource includes videos on using oral history in research, The Sage Handbook of Historical Theory, researching social change, life stories and family histories as well as archival and documentary research.

Using archives and special collections - a short introduction to archives and integrating primary source material into your research.