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New British Library metadata for theology and church history

peterwebster1 Comment

Less well-known that it should be is the British Library’s recent venture of making subsets of its collection metadata available for download and reuse on a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication basis.

Of particular interest is a dataset extract from the British National Bibliography in March 2015 for theology, subdivided into monographs and serials. The BNB extends as far back as 1950, and my count suggests that there are some 119,000 entries in the monograph file, and 4233 for serials. This looks to be a incredibly rich resource for thinking about the discipline in the last few decades. My initial searches suggest that there is a great deal here for ecclesiastical history as well.

The files may be downloaded near the foot of this downloads page.

Update:  special care is required in the period before 1960, as there is a very large slump in numbers of monographs included between 1955 and 1959. The data is derived from the Dewey decimal classification (200-300); and there seems to have been a decision taken and then reversed not to classify certain works with those classmarks.

Total numbers of records (5 year segments):

1950-54:   4,921

1955-59: 765

1960-64: 6,482

1965-69: 6,697

1970-74: 6,175

1975-79: 6,979

1980-84: 8,142

1985-89: 9,854

1990-94: 11,599

1995-99: 13,027

2000-04: 13,714

2005-09: 17,454

2010-14: 13,527

Introducing Web Archives for Historians

peterwebster1 Comment

WebArchivesforHistoriansIt was a great pleasure last week, after several months, to be able to unveil Web Archives for Historians, a joint project with the excellent Ian Milligan of the University of Waterloo.

The premise is simple. We’re looking to crowd-source a bibliography of research and writing by historians who use or think about the making or use of web archives. Here’s what the site has to say:

“We want to know about works written by historians covering topics such as: (a) reflections on the need for web preservation, and its current state in different countries and globally as a whole; (b) how historians could, should or should not use web archives; (c) examples of actual uses of web archives as primary sources..”

Ian and I had been struck by just how few historians we knew of who were beginning to use web archives as primary sources, and how little there has been written on the topic. We aimed to provide a resource for historians who are getting interested in the topic, to publicise their work and find that of others.

It can include formal research articles or book chapters, but also substantial blog posts and conference papers, which we think reflects the diverse ways in which this type of work is likely to be communicated.

So: please do submit a title, or view the bibliography to date (which is shared on a Creative Commons basis). You can also sign up to express a general interest in the area. These details won’t be shared publicly, but you might just occasionally hear by email of interesting developments as and when we hear of them.

You can also find the project on Twitter @HistWebArchives