Media, Culture and Heritage – Library Subject Support

Temporary free access: entire Drama Online collection

Photo of a theatre — Image by David Mark from Pixabay

We have temporary free access to the entire Drama Online collection until May 31st 2020. The Library has subscribed to this resource for several years, with access to over 2,200 plays and books from the Core Collection and Nick Hern Books, but we now have temporary access to the entire content, including audiovisual materials such as the National Theatre Live and BBC films collections.

You can search/browse the content in various ways on the Drama Online site.

For example, using the options at the top of the screen, you can browse by title, author, genre and time period, or if you click Find Plays on the home page, you can add in other search filters, such as number of roles or scenes. Select Context and Criticism for access to a wide range of e-books about drama.

As always, your feedback on this trial will be very welcome. Please email it, or post it as a comment on this blog post.

Temporary free access: Bloomsbury Popular Music

The Library has trial access to Bloomsbury Popular Music until May 31st 2020. This wide-ranging resource comprises:

All volumes of the landmark reference work, Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World.
All 130 short books in the 33 1/3 series, focusing on significant LPs from a wide range of genres and eras.
A selection of other scholarly ebooks on popular music published by Bloomsbury, including biographies and historical overviews.
Interactive features, including a pop music timeline and map.
Biographies of hundreds of artists.

You can search or browse it in various ways, such as by artist, genre or location. Watch the short trailer for an overview. As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

To access the resource, click on Log In at the top right hand of the screen, then select the Shibboleth Login Page > Newcastle University, and log in as usual.

Resource on trial: Archives of Sexuality and Gender

NB Trial access extended for one more month!

The Library has trial access to Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender until May 31st 2020.

This is a significant collection of digitised primary source material dating from the 16th to 21st centuries. It comprises four archives:

LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part I

LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II

Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century

International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture

The digitised materials include rare books, correspondence, newsletters, photographs and campaign materials from a wide range of organisations around the world. Read a more detailed description of the four archives.

As with all Gale resources, you can search or browse the materials in various ways. You may find it helpful to start off by clicking Collections on the home page for an overview of the different collections which make up each archive.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

New ebook collections: Taylor and Francis

The Library has access to several new ebook collections from Taylor and Francis until March 2021.

The collections comprise over 1,200 titles in a wide range of subject areas across humanities, social sciences, science, technology and medicine.

All the books are individually catalogued on Library Search, or you can browse them on the Taylor and Francis site (click Show content I have access to in the search filter box to display the titles available to you).

After March 2021, we will assess usage of the titles.

Temporary free access: RILM Music Encyclopedias and MGG Online

The Library has temporary access to two music reference resources: RILM Music Encyclopedias and MGG Online, until May 31st 2020. These resources are being made freely available by RILM during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

RILM Music Encyclopedias comprises 57 titles published from 1775 to the present, covering a wide range of music topics.

MGG Online provides in-depth articles on topics, themes and people in music and related areas. You can browse or search both resources in various ways.

To access the resources, click on Log in in the top right hand corner, and select Log in via your institution (Shibboleth), then choose Newcastle University from the list and log in as usual.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

Temporary free access: University of Michigan ebooks

The Library has free access to the University of Michigan’s ebook collection until April 30th 2020. This content is being made available due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

We have access to just under 1,200 books, across a wide range of humanities and social sciences fields. All the books are individually catalogued on Library Search, or you can browse the titles on the pu blisher’s site.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

Resource on trial: Bloomsbury Cultural History

The Library has trial access to Bloomsbury Cultural History until May 31st 2020. This content is being made freely available during the current Covid-19 pandemic.

This digital reference tool focuses on cultural history, from antiquity to modernity, and the content comprises images, ebooks and interactive features such as timelines.

You can explore the resource in various ways: e.g. by topic, period or place.

To access the resource, click on Log In at the top right hand of the screen, then select the Shibboleth Login Page > Newcastle University, and log in as usual.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

Project MUSE offers selected free resources until end May 2020

Multiple publishers in the humanities and social sciences, including a variety of distinguished university presses, societies, and related not-for-profit publishers, are making a selection of their journal and ebook content available for free in a response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Among the publishers currently opting to make content free on Project MUSE are Johns Hopkins University Press (all books and journals), Ohio State University Press (all books and journals), University of Nebraska Press (all books and journals), University of North Carolina Press (all books), Temple University Press (all books), and Vanderbilt University Press (selected books). Project MUSE expect to announce additional participants and will continually update the list of publishers offering free access to content.

Content that is freely available on the Project MUSE platform during the COVID-19 crisis will display a distinctive “Free” icon, different from the “OA” icon used for fully open access content on MUSE, or the familiar green checkmark that users associate with content held by Newcastle University Library.

Explore the Project MUSE platform and discover the latest free material.

Resource on trial: the Illustrated London News Archive 1842-2003

The Library has trial access to the Illustrated London News Archive until 1st April 2020.

This was the world’s first fully illustrated weekly newspaper, and presents a vivid picture of British and world events. It provides a fascinating insight into areas of life such as politics, arts, fashion, science, sport and leisure.

As with all Gale news archives, you can search or browse it in various ways (choose Advanced Search to see all options) and you can also use the Term Frequency feature to explore how often a word, phrase or person has been mentioned in the archive over time.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

If you are off-campus, please login to RAS first of all, and then access The Illustrated London News Archive from a browser within RAS.

Now available: Cambridge University Press announces free electronic textbooks collection until end May 2020

Cambridge University Press has made over 700 textbooks freely available to those in Higher Education until the end of May 2020 as a result of COVID-19.

These titles are in addition to our current CUP holdings and we are adding them to Library Search to aid discovery.

To browse and access the free collections visit the Cambridge Textbooks homepage (including subject headings): https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/textbooks

For more information see the Cambridge COVID-19 resource notification page: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/covid-19-resources-and-information