The letters of Bess of Hardwick are now available online. One of Elizabethan England’s most famous figures, she is perhaps best known as the builder of great stately homes like the magnificent Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth House.  Bess’s letters bring to life her extraordinary story and allow us to reposition her as a complex woman of her times.  They weave a web of correspondence that stretches from servants, friends and family, to queens and officers of state.

http://www.bessofhardwick.org/home.jsp

The Digital Public Library of America has been launched.  This site provides access to  photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images etc from libraries, archives, and museums from around the United States.  You can browse and search the DPLA’s collections by timeline, map, format, and topic.

http://dp.la/

Newsbank has been replaced by 2 new news services:

InfoTrac Newsstand at:
http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/uows?db=STND 
 
and Custom Newspapers Wales at:
http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/uows?db=SP01 

These 2 news services provide access to over 2,500 local, national and international newspapers and magazines and replace our existing service NewsBank.  In each database, click on Publication Search on the orange toolbar and List all Publications to see the newspapers covered (mouse over each title to see the years covered).  Don’t forget that you can gain access to all our Newspapers databases and News services by going to the Newspapers and News part of iFind Research.  If you need help searching and using these resources contact the Arts and Humanities Team at artslib@swansea.ac.uk. 

Just a reminder that we now subscribe to ebrary where you can access 78,000 e-books at the click of a button.  There are books available on a wide variety of subjects including American Studies, History and Classics, Language and Literature, Politics and Government, Fine Arts and Religion.Read the books online or download them for up to 14 days, you can even create your own online bookshelf for easy access to your favourite titles.

If you need any further help using this resource please contact library@swansea.ac.uk

We have free trial access until 8 June to the Beta version of a new database Drama Online.  The site contains the text of many plays, e.g. works from Ibsen, Chekov, Brecht, Pirandello and Wedekind, together with critical works.

As this is the “Beta version” of the database, the full content is not yet available and will become available later in 2013.  You can find out more and get a list of the works that will be included on the site later this year by clicking on “About” at the top of the home page. 

http://dramaonlinelibrary.com/
Contact us for a username and password for off campus access:artslib@swansea.ac.uk

The Welsh Newspapers Online website has been launched.   This website from the National Library of Wales will allow us to browse and search over 100 titles from its rich collection of pre-1910 newspapers.  The newspapers already available are listed at http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk/en/title/browse.  Others, including the Cambrian, and will be added later this year.  A complete list is given at http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=5669  http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk/en/home  is the url.

National Library of Wales staff will be developing the Help page further.    Search terms can be combined by AND and other Boolean operators (in capitals).  For instance, typing “Lloyd George” AND budget finds items mentioning both Lloyd George and budget.  As in many other databases, when doing a phrase search (e.g. when looking for mentions of “St. Patrick’s Day”) it is best to enclose the phrase in inverted commas.  

There are links to Welsh Newspapers Online from iFind Research and the library catalogue iFind Discover.

The British Cartoon Archive provides online access to British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons.  The collection dates back to 1904 and includes work by W.K.Hasleden, Will Dyson, Sidney ‘George’ Strube, David Low,Vicky, Emmwood, Michael Cummings, Ralph Steadman, Mel Calman, Nicholas Garland, Chris Riddell, Carl Giles amongst many others.  It can be accessed at:

http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/

As you may know, the launch of “Manuscripts Online” has been announced by JISC.   This gives access to a massive amount of written material between 1000 and 1500.   

The Manuscripts Online website is at http://www.manuscriptsonline.org   Ian Glen

We have access at computers on campus to the new database Partridge Slang Online until 31st March.The url is www.partridgeslangonline.com   On that web page click on “Sign in via IP”. The site is a treasure store of “slang and unconventional English used anywhere in the English-speaking world after 1945”. We have the fifth and eighth edition of Partridge’s Slang and Unconventional English in the Reference Collection.  Partridge Slang Online has many words not included in these. Ian Glen

Do you have letters, photographs, postcards or other memorabilia from those who experienced the war either at home or at the Front? You are invited to bring them along to a series of events during March which will aim to capture the personal experiences of the Welsh involved in the War.

The war affected everyone; those who fought, and those who stayed behind. If you have items relating to any aspect of life during the war years, please bring them along to an event to have them preserved and shared digitally.

A national project led by The National Library of Wales in partnership with the libraries, special collections and archives of Wales is aiming to reveal the hidden history of World War One as it affected all aspects of Welsh life, language and culture. The digital collection will be available online and People’s Collection Wales, a project partner, is inviting the public to become a part of the project by bringing their materials along to one of a series of events where staff will be on hand to scan letters, photographs, certificates, postcards, diaries and any other documents or memorabilia.