E-resources Advent Calendar Window 24 : Subject guides just for you

As a member of the University of Cambridge you have access to 1519 databases (including subscribed and freely available) through our Databases A-Z.

The A-Z is organised alphabetically and offers a search box for you to find specific eresources easily.

If you would prefer to browse the list you might find it easier to use the subject drop down list to limit the A-Z to subjects for your subject area/s.

You’ll then see a list of ‘Best bets’ followed by other databases that should be relevant for your research.

If you are still unsure about the databases that might be most useful for your research you can get advice from your Department or Faculty Library team.

There are 52 subject specific LibGuides that will include information about the eresources available for you to use over the Christmas break and when your library is closed.

These subject specific guides will have been created by subject specialists and will include links to eresources you will find useful for your research. You are welcome to use any and all guides that you think might be useful to you for your research.

Image by Yvette Fang from Pixabay

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 23 : Mintel Academic

Wondering about Holiday Spending and Trends?

Mintel Academic provides short articles focused on interesting tidbits as well as market news, in-depth reports on consumer and industry trends and the datasets to support them.

 

 

Guest post from Melendra Sutliff Sanders, Deputy Librarian, Cambridge Judge Business School

 

Visit the CJBS Database Guide for access to more resources available to you in Business and Finance.

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 22 : Oh, Ho Ho Ho, for an Old Fashioned Family Christmas

The Advent Calendar angel advised us making your own fun is always best, and fashioning your own cards of the season is the place to start, here’s one from the collection “Posters from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives” we turned up in Cambridge’s access to the LGBTQ History & Culture since 1940, Archives of Sexuality & Gender

• Title Old Fashioned Family Christmas
• Date n.d.
• Language English
• Document Type Poster
• Manuscript Number 886;1990-149 N
• Source Library The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives
• Gale Document Number GALE|KNSTJW781092784

Check out our LibGuide for other LGBTQ+ resources.

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 21 : Newspapers around the world

We have access to newspapers from around the globe. They are listed on our newspapers pages as Overseas and Foreign Language Newspapers and British Newspapers.

Along with links to archive and current content from single newspapers you can also search multiple sources on platforms such as Factiva, Gallica, Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers (MENA), World News Connection, and British Library Newspapers.

We also have an A-Z listing of newspapers on our Newspaper LibGuide 

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 20 : JSTOR Global Plants

JSTOR Global Plants is the largest database of digitised herbarium specimens and therefore the go-to for finding high-resolution images of classic Christmas plant specimens such as holly (Ilex aquifolium), ivy (Hedera helix) and mistletoe (Viscum album).  

Ilex aquifolium L., Linnean Society of London Herbarium (LINN), LINN-HS244-1-1

Hedera helix L., Natural History Museum (BM), BM000558138 

Viscum album L., Linnean Society of London Herbarium (LINN), LINN-HS1527-15-1 

The primary sources are linked to related information in open access databases including Tropicos, Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.  

Visit the Plant Sciences LibGuide for access to more resources available to you in Plant Sciences.

We thank Frances Marsh, Department of Plant Sciences Library, Downing Site, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EA, plant@lib.cam.ac.uk for this post.

New eresource : Mass Observation Project 1981-2009

We are very pleased to announce that access to the Mass Observation Project is now available to Cambridge University members.

The Mass Observation Project (MOP) is a unique national life writing project about everyday life in Britain, capturing the experiences, thoughts and opinions of everyday people.

This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation between 1980 and 2010 and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. 

For help navigating the Mass Observation Project site please see their helpful user guides.

Mass Observation Project consists of all the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation and the responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers.

Addressing topics such as the Falklands War, clothing, attitudes to the USA, reading and television habits, morality and religion, and Britain’s relations with Europe, the directives and responses are an essential resource for anyone interested in late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century British social history.

Broad themes covered include current events, friends and family, the home, leisure, politics, society, culture and the media, work, finance and the economy and new technology.

The Adam Matthew Digital Accessibility Statement covers all their available resources, including the Mass observation Project.

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 19 : Drama Online – Six new video collections

Have you seen what’s new this Christmas?

We are very pleased to announce a new suite of video collections on Drama Online, which explore theatre traditions from around the world and offer practical insight into the industry from leading writers and directors. These curated video collections are designed to enhance and expand your theatre teaching and research:

Shakespeare Video Collection

Playwrights and Practitioners Video Collection

Theatre Making and Performance Training Video Collection

British, American and Australian Theatre Video Collection

Asian Theatre Video Collection

European Theatre Video Collection

 

We hope you enjoy Harry Burton’s unique 2007 documentary Working With Pinter, featuring an interview with the playwright himself and rare footage of Pinter rehearsing extracts from his own plays.

 

Visit the English Faculty LibGuide for access to more resources available to you in English.

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 18 : Chag urim sameach

Happy Hanukkah! Read more about the Festival of Lights thanks to our access to the Encyclopedia Judaica online.

“ḤANUKKAH (Heb. חֲנֻכָּה; “dedication”), an annual eight-day festival commencing on the 25^th of Kislev. According to a well-founded tradition it was instituted by *Judah Maccabee and his followers. The term ḥanukkah is found in Hebrew and in Aramaic (ḥanukta) in rabbinic literature, while in Greek it is ὸ ὲγκαινισμὸς τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, “dedication of the altar,” (I Maccabees 4:59) and τἁ ὲγκαίνια, “feast of the dedication” (John 10:22, where it is an abbreviation of ḥanukkat ha-mizbe’aḥ, “dedication of the altar,” of I Maccabees, and of ḥanukkat beit Ḥashmonai, “dedication of the Hasmonean Temple” in rabbinic literature).”

Herr, Moshe David. “Ḥanukkah.” Encyclopaedia Judaica, edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., vol. 8, Macmillan Reference USA, 2007, pp. 331-333. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2587508382/GVRL?u=cambuni&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=c13b0518. 

אליעד מלין, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 17 : Christmas is not Christmas without –

Dickens, but did you know his works, journalism, letters, diaries, and more can all be found online for Cambridge University members at Oxford Scholarly Editions Online?

Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused—in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened—by the recurrence Christmas. There are people who will tell you that is not to them what it used to be—that each succeeding has found some cherished hope or happy prospect of the year before dimmed or passed away—and that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences.

Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz (1837): 45. Christmas Festivities (1835)
in Paul Schlicke and David Hewitt (eds), The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens: Sketches by Boz

“The Second of The Three Spirits” or “Scrooge’s third Visitor” John Leech 1843

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 16 : BMJ Christmas issue

The BMJ publishes a special Christmas double issue each year which includes, but is not limited to, research on topics that might not normally feature in the publication

Previous issues have included Open Access articles, such as:

Ghost in the machine or monkey with a typewriter—generating titles for Christmas research articles in The BMJ using artificial intelligence: observational study which includes an interactive element where you can guess if an article title has appeared in the BMJ or if it was AI generated (I only guessed 1 out of the first 3 correctly!)

The survival time of chocolates on hospital wards: covert observational study “Observers covertly placed two 350 g boxes of Quality Street and Roses chocolates on each ward (eight boxes were used in the study containing a total of 258 individual chocolates). These boxes were kept under continuous covert surveillance, with the time recorded when each chocolate was eaten.”

Golf habits among physicians and surgeons: observational cohort study “Proportion of physicians who play golf, golf performance (measured using golf handicap index), and golf frequency (number of games played in previous six months).”

Wine glass size in England from 1700 to 2017: a measure of our time This articles includes a useful inforgraphic

Our access to the BMJ is from 1840 to present