Beyond the obvious studying lifestyles at the British Library

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Beyond the obvious studying lifestyles at the
British Library

• Ian CookeSocial Science Collections and Research
• Studying Lifestyles resources past, present and
  futureMonday 9 March 2009

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Getting started www.bl.uk
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Archival Sound Recordings - examples

• From Millennium Memory bankC900/02595
  Schoolchildren talk about earning and spending
  moneyhttp//sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item021M-C090
  0X02595X-0700V0.xml
• From Jewish survivors of the Holocaust
  C0410/061 remembering secondary school in
  Glasgow, pocket money and sources of
  incomehttp//sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item021M-C04
  10X0061XX-0300V0.xml

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British Library Newspapers

• 19th C digitised Newspapers
• Free to HE and FE
• 50 titles, 10 million articles
• Focus on regional
• Study how stories were reported across the
  country

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19th C Newspapers Advertising search

• Look and feel of newspapers preserved
• Full-text searching
• Search for advertisements source for informal
  economy in 19thC Britain
• Be aware of language change

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Newspapers, comics, fanzines, underground press

• Collecting news from across the world
• Types of publications include Comics fanzines
  etc
• See our Learning pages for a discussion on the
  underground press in Britain

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Intellectual property, market research, trade
literature

• Market research study of what people are doing
  a good compliment to government surveys
  demographic information.Eg Walls Pocket Money
  Monitor, our shelfmark (XP) AL 90 E(12)
• Intellectual Property and Trade Literature
  worldwide collection, from mid 19th C. Use this
  to study
• Development of brands
• Changing consumer behaviour and aspirations
• History of businesses

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Official Publications

• Subjects
• Social conditions
• Education
• Health
• Finance
• Trade and industry
• Media and culture
• Transport

• Types
• British state papers
• Official publications from around the world
• Reports from departments and agencies
• Parliamentary papers
• Legislation
• Inter-governmental organisations

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British Parliamentary Papers

• Read statements given by witnesses, and other
  evidence collected for presentation to Parliament
• Statistics and commentary on all aspects of
  peoples lives
• House of Commons Papers online free to all
  Higher Education institutions
• Ask for help when starting to use Parliamentary
  Papers

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Inter-Governmental Organisations

• The organisations internal affairs (minutes of
  committees, conferences, resolutions etc )
• Diplomatic affairs (peacekeeping, mandates,
  mediation etc)
• Social issues (health, women and children, drug
  trafficking, refugees, human rights)
• Economic issues (unemployment, labour
  conditions, transport, trade)
• Statistics
• Evidence from expert groups and witnesses

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Web Archive

• Informal publishing websites can be lost very
  quickly
• Personal interest and non-commercial sites can be
  most at risk (and of great interest to study of
  peoples lives)
• Eg compare Choice and Voice, saved in the Web
  Archivehttp//www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/arch
  ive/20060511113743/http//www.choiceandvoice.com/i
  ndex-2.html
• With the URL today
• http//www.choiceandvoice.com

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Guides and support

• Reference services reading room, telephone,
  email
• Help for Researchers web pages
• Collection guides, eg for government
  publicationshttp//www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpres
  type/offpubs/guides/govtguides.html
• Topical bibliographies, eg Globalisation and
  employment, Gang culture and knife crime
• Welfare Reform on the Web
• How do you use these collections?