Primary Sources: NCCO – British Politics and Society

The British Politics and Society archive, part of the newly acquired Nineteenth Century Collections Online, consists of primary sources related to the political climate in Great Britain during the nineteenth century, including papers of British statesmen, Home Office records, ordnance surveys, and working class autobiographies. This is a rich resource for scholars exploring such topics as British domestic and foreign policy, trade unions, Chartism, utopian socialism, public protest, radical movements, the cartographic record, political reform, education, family relationships, religion, leisure and many others.

Each of the collections in the archive is browsable. Basic and advanced searching of the collections is also possible, although the results will vary from collection to collection depending on how much machine-readable content is included. The full text of handwritten documents is not searchable.

Search tip: In advanced search, you have the option to “Allow variations.” This is a good option to choose, since it will look for British and American spelling variations (harbor/harbour) and also may compensate for some Optical Character Recognition (OCR) errors that inevitably occur during the scanning process.


Open Access at UC on YouTube

On October 23, 2012, Professor Richard Schneider, UCSF — with an introduction by Molly Van Houweling, Professor of Law at UC Berkeley — presented a program as part of the library’s Open Access Week activities.

In his talk, Professor Schneider described how scholars can empower viable alternatives to the present system of scholarly communication, regain control over their publications, and increase the reach, visibility, and impact of their research.

Watch the video on the UC Berkeley Events YouTube channel:
Open Access at UC: Maximizing the Reach, Visibility and Impact of Your Research


About the speakers:

Richard Schneider is an Associate Professor at UCSF and has chaired both the UCSF and UC Systemwide library committees of the Academic Senate. In May of this year, UCSF became the first UC campus to implement an open access policy. Under this new policy, electronic versions of all scientific articles authored by UCSF faculty are now to be made freely available to the public via eScholarship, an open access repository. The vote by the UCSF faculty senate was unanimous, making UCSF the largest scientific institution and the first public university to adopt an open access policy. Richard Schneider led the effort to pass and implement this landmark policy.

Molly Van Houweling has been involved in open access issues as a member of Senate Library Committee and as a staff and board member of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that facilitates sharing of knowledge and cultural resources through open licensing.


Event: UCSF Open Access Policy

Open Access at UC: Maximizing the Reach, Visibility and Impact of Your Research

A Faculty Conversation on Scholarly Communication with Richard Schneider, UCSF. Introduced and moderated by Molly Van Houweling, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley

Tuesday, October 23
3:30-5:00pm
Education/Psychology Library, Tolman Hall

In May of this year, UCSF became the first UC campus to implement an open access policy. Under this new policy, electronic versions of all scientific articles authored by UCSF faculty are now to be made freely available to the public via eScholarship, an open access repository. The vote by the UCSF faculty senate was unanimous, making UCSF the largest scientific institution and the first public university to adopt an open access policy.

Please join us for a conversation with Richard Schneider who led the effort to pass and implement this landmark policy; find out how you can empower viable alternatives to the present system of scholarly communication, regain control over your publications, and increase the reach, visibility, and impact of your research.

Richard Schneider is an Associate Professor at UCSF and has chaired both the UCSF and UC Systemwide library committees of the Academic Senate.

Molly Van Houweling has been involved in open access issues as a member of Senate Library Committee and as a staff and board member of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that facilitates sharing of knowledge and cultural resources through open licensing.

Faculty, students, researchers, and the public are invited to attend.
Sponsored by the UC Berkeley Library.


More on open access:

  • Publish Smart, Maximize Impact: open access week workshops on Wednesday, October 24 and Thursday, October 25 covering the Social Sciences, Sciences and Arts, Humanities and Area Studies
  • Open Access defined (from the UCB Library Collections Scholarly Communications page)
  • Open Access Week: a global event promoting Open Access as the new norm in scholarship and research.