LibGuides@Southampton: English: Books, Theses & Dissertations

ebook collections

Historical Texts This link opens in a new window
Historical Texts brings together four historically significant collections for the first time: Early English Books Online (EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century collection and the UK Medical Heritage Library (UKMHL).
Early English Books Online (EEBO) Proquest This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
Early European Books This link opens in a new window
Early European Books provides scholars with new ways of accessing and exploring all works printed in Europe before 1701, drawing together a diverse array of printed sources, regardless of language, as well as works published further afield.

Key Locations

The Hartley Library uses the Library of Congress classification scheme for subjects other than Education which uses Dewey Decimal Classification. Key locations for titles of interest to English students are listed here.

Call Number	Subject
PN	Comparative Literature & Literary Theory
PR	English Literature
PS	American Literature

Floor 5 of Hartley holds the main collection of books for English:

Call Numbers explained

When you enter the details of the item that you want on the library catalogue, it will display a call number or code that tells you where the item is shelved.

The call number will usually look something like this example:

PR 4560 BRO

The combinations of letters and numbers gives a location based on the subject content of the item. The items are arranged on the shelves using the call numbers.

The library floor plan will show you where items with particular call numbers are stored.

Literary Reference

English Short Title Catalogue This link opens in a new window
The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists over 480,000 items published between 1473 and 1800, mainly, but not exclusively, in English, published from the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries.
Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window
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The Literary Encyclopedia is a constantly evolving and updating repository of authoritative reference work about literary and cultural history. All of the articles are solicited by invitation from specialist scholars in higher education institutions all over the world, refereed and approved by subject editors in the Editorial Board.
Oxford World's Classics (OWC) This link opens in a new window
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Oxford World’s Classics brings readers closer to the world’s great literature, providing providing access to novels, and other writings, from the 18th and 19th century, supporting research with comprehensive introductions, clear explanatory notes, chronologies, and bibliographies available in every book.

Reference

The Library has many dictionaries and encyclopaedias, including biographical dictionaries, subject dictionaries and specialist encyclopaedias.

American National Biography This link opens in a new window
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The American National Biography offers scholarly biographies of more than 19,000 renowned American men & women, from all eras and walks of life, reflecting the rich diversity of American life from pre-colonial times to the present day.
History of Parliament Online This link opens in a new window
This site contains all of the biographical, constituency and introductory survey articles published in The History of Parliament series. The History of Parliament is a research project creating a comprehensive account of parliamentary politics in England, then Britain, from their origins in the thirteenth century. Volumes currently available cover 1386-1421, 1509-58, 1558-1603, 1660-90, 1690-1715, 1715-54, 1754-90 and 1790-1820. Additional materials have been produced for the web site.
Oxford Classical Dictionary This link opens in a new window
An encyclopedic work in English consisting of articles relating to classical antiquity and its civilizations.
Continuously updated on a monthly basis, this edition incorporates all 6,300 entries from the OCD 4th edition (which are being updated on a rolling basis) as well as newly commissioned entries, and features multimedia content and freely accessible maps of the ancient world
Oxford Dictionaries Premium This link opens in a new window
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Premium language resources for English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography includes over 60,000 biographies, 72 million words, and 11,000 portraits of significant, influential or notorious figures who shaped British history.
Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED) This link opens in a new window
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A guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words past and present, from across the English-speaking world. Find the history of individual words, and of the language, traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
The resource offers a huge range of fully-indexed, extensively linked, up to date, and cross-searchable dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press, including detailed information across a broad subject range from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions series...more info
Oxford Research Encylopedias This link opens in a new window
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Comprehensive collections of in-depth, peer-reviewed summaries on an ever-growing range of topics.
Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) This link opens in a new window
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Oxford Scholarly Editions Online provides full-text access to over 1,500 editions covering 1,200 years of history, showcasing their authoritative editorial notes directly alongside the text and enabling advanced search within and between editions. A rich collection of primary material that ranges across a wide variety of subject areas, from philosophy, literature, and theology, to economics, linguistics, and medicine.
Very Short Introducations This link opens in a new window
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Very Short Introductions offer concise introductions to a diverse range of subjects from Climate to Consciousness, Game Theory to Ancient Warfare, Privacy to Islamic History, Economics to Literary Theory.
Who's Who & Who Was Who This link opens in a new window
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Who's Who is the leading source of up-to-date information about over 35,000 influential people from all walks of life, worldwide. Containing autobiographical listings of people from around the globe who have an impact on British life, including senior politicians, judges, civil servants, and notable figures from the arts, academia, and other areas.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Gale Literary Sources provides access to 8 different literature databases including more than 1,5 million critiques, poems, plays, dramas, biographies, articles and quotations. With a series of databases, it supports scholars researching the Western Literature. It includes:

Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Providing a collection of 4000-volume encyclopaedia including 1,700 entries from all disciplines.

A user guide can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqg9Q3lREOQ

Cambridge Companions Online

Cambridge Companions Online This link opens in a new window
Cambridge Companions are a series of authoritative guides, written by leading experts, offering lively, accessible introductions to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics, and periods.

Oxford Handbooks

Oxford Handbooks This link opens in a new window
The Handbook series contains in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research.

Theses and Dissertations

Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window
The world's most comprehensive collection of full-text dissertations and theses.
Click 'login' for on campus access. For access off campus, click 'login', enter 'University of Southampton' in the institutional field followed by your institutional username and password.
Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) This link opens in a new window
Find open access graduate theses and dissertations published from around the world. Metadata comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 5,330,227 theses and dissertations.

University of Southampton PhD/ MPhil theses

many doctoral level theses are now also available online from ePrints Soton
there are more details about finding theses available

University of Southampton Undergraduate / Masters dissertations

a limited number of undergraduate dissertations are held on Blackboard under the Research Project module code
for Masters and further examples of undergraduate dissertations students should ask enquire at the Faculty Office or discuss with their supervisor

Using other University libraries

SCONUL Access is a scheme which allows many university library users to borrow or use books and journals at other libraries which belong to the scheme, The scheme covers most of the university libraries in the UK and Ireland.

You can sign up for the scheme on the SCONUL website.

Finding Books in Other Libraries

Jisc Library Hub Discover This link opens in a new window
The new Library Hub Discover, provides access to details of materials held in many UK national, academic and specialist libraries.
Library Hub Discover currently contains 39,620,869 records created from 93,299,858 records contributed by 110 institutions.
Library Hub Discover replaces Copac and SUNCAT, offering increased coverage of university libraries along with new facilities and improved response times.