The British Library
The British Library holds an enormous range of collections that are of value to researchers in the social sciences and humanities. It also offers a great deal of online materials and extensive services for researchers. A small selection are listed below. ,/p>
Archival Sound Recordings
http://sounds.bl.uk/
The archival sound recordings site hosts over 40,000 sound recordings (including oral history interviews) which are accessible by HEIs and can be listened to online.
Social Science Bibliographies
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/socsci/topbib/bibliographies.html
Thematic and topical bibliographies combine links to information freely available on the web with details of the databases and printed sources available to readers at the Library. The bibliographies
provide an introductory guide for people new to a topic, and they will also be of interest to those with more experience in researching these subjects. Although not exhaustive, these guides
demonstrate the variety of ways in which the British Library can support your research.
There are two bibliographies relevant to social science research methods:
- qualitative methods in social research
- quantitative methods in social research
Other sites which demonstrate the range of British Library collections are listed below. The oral history collections and the digitised newspaper project may be of particular interest and the online gallery gives a good indication of the range of visual materials held (e.g. maps, 19th century photographs, ephemera...).
Oral History Collections http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/sound/ohist/ohcoll/collections.html.
Online Gallery http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/index.html.
Online Exhibitions http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/index.html.
Digitised 19th century newspapers http://newspapers11.bl.uk/blcs/