Arts and Humanities electronic databases - subject index: A

The electronic resources listed here are available in the Humanities and Rare Books and Music Reading Rooms (and in some cases also in other Reading Rooms) of the British Library.

For licensing reasons, the links to most of the electronic databases listed below will only work from within British Library Reading Rooms.

If you do not find the resource you are looking for, see the Library's complete listing of electronic resources in the British Library London Reading Rooms.

Online resources

CD-ROMs

American studies

Title	Brief description	Format
20th Century African-American poetry	Database of modern and contemporary African-American poetry from the early twentieth century to the present. (In Literature Online)
20th Century American poetry	Poems drawn from 750 volumes of over 300 poets. (In Literature Online)
African-American poetry (1750-1900)	Nearly 3000 poems written by African-American poets in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (In Literature Online)
America: History and Life	Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Article abstracts and bibliographical citations of books and dissertations. Indexing, which originally covered publications from 1964 onwards, is being extended retrospectively to the late 19th century. Click here to search America: History and Life alongside Historical Abstracts.
American Book Prices Current	Annual record of books, manuscripts, autographs, maps and broadsides sold at auction in the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom and selected other countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries	More than a thousand sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs that provide access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war.
American Drama	When complete, this collection will contain more than 2,000 plays by American dramatists that chronicle the history and culture of America through its dramatic writing. (In Literature Online)
American Film Scripts Online	An ongoing project to digitize and thoroughly index 1,000 film scripts. The database is searchable by writers, scripts, scenes and characters..
American National Biography Online	Profiles over 18,000 men and women from all eras and all walks of life who helped shape American history and culture.
American Poetry	Over 40,000 poems by more than 200 American poets from the Colonial Period to the early twentieth century. (An individual collection within Literature Online)
American State Papers, 1789-1838	Part of the Archive of Americana. Retrospective collection of Congressional materials from 1789 to 1838. Includes topics such as Lewis and Clark's Expedition, Burr's Conspiracy and arrest, Barbary pirates, Abolition of slavery, War of 1812, Speeches and messages of presidents, etc.
Archive of Americana	Books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, Government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries. Collections include Early American Newspapers (1690-1876), the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980) and American State Papers (1789-1838). Remote access, to Early American Newspapers, is available for registered St Pancras Reader Pass holders.
Bibliography of American Literature	Detailed description of the works of America's most important literary writers from the time of the Revolution to 1930. More than 37,000 works are listed, essentially the complete printed record of American literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
British records on the Atlantic World, 1700- 1900	Included as part of British Online Archives, this 11 part series documents the colonial, missionary and commercial history of British activities in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Many of the collections provide original documents on Britain's role in the slave trade.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers	This site from the Library of Congress allows you to search and view American newspaper pages from 1860-1922 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690 and the present.
Early American Fiction 1789 - 1850 [-1875]	Provides both images and text for a well-defined and comprehensive collection of early American fiction. Includes full text of works by James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, Catharine Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Herman Melville and many others. Published jointly with the University of Virginia Library. (In Literature Online)
Early American Newspapers Series I (1690-1876)	Part of the Archive of Americana. Features cover-to-cover reproductions of hundreds of historic newspapers, providing more than one million pages as fully text-searchable facsimile images Based largely on Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820. Remote access is available for registered St Pancras Reader Pass holders.
Early Encounters in North America	Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, cultures and the environment. Descriptions of North America, either its natural features or interactions among various cultural groups, from the period 1534 to 1860.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750	Bibliographic database based on European Americana : a chronological guide to works printed in Europe relating to the Americas, 1493-1750. Over 32,000 entries, covering the history of European exploration and portrayals of native American peoples.
HAPI Online	Online version of the Hispanic American Periodicals Index. Indexes more than 500 key social science and humanities journals containing information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Coverage dates from 1970 onwards and includes articles, book reviews and original literary works. Many of the citations are linked to full text.
NewsBank Newspapers U.K., Ireland and U.S.A	Full-text articles from several UK national newspapers and over 140 UK & Irish regional and local newspapers and periodicals. Search single titles or search multiple titles simultaneously. The UK national titles include the Financial Times from 1982 onwards and The Times from 1985 onwards. US titles include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries	Includes more than 150,000 pages of primary materials spanning more than 300 years, from Colonial times to 1950; also includes biographies and a bibliography of sources.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007	Digital facsimiles of printed and manuscript materials relevant to trans-Atlantic slavery and abolition. Materials relating to slavery today, desegregation and social justice are included. The facsimile documents are presented alongside contextual essays contributed by leading academics in the field.
Underground & Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels	A scholarly online collection for researchers of adult comic books and graphic novels. Beginning with the first underground comix from the 1960s to the work of modern sequential artists to the present day, content is supplemented by interviews, criticism, and journal articles. Note: contains graphic material that some may find offensive.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980)	Part of the Archive of Americana. Search or browse the Reports, Documents, and Journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes for the period 1817-1980.
Vogue Archive	Entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day,  including all text, graphics, ads, covers and fold-outs, indexed and in colour. Contents represent the work of  designers, photographers, stylists and illustrators of the 20th and 21st centuries and are a primary source for the study of fashion, gender and modern social history.
Walt Whitman	Major authors on CD-ROM: The Brontes, Johnson and Boswell, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf.

Anthropology and Ethnography

Title	Brief description	Format
Anthropology Plus	Anthropology Plus brings together into one resource Anthropological Literature and Anthropological Index. It provides extensive worldwide indexing of journal articles in the fields of social and cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, biological anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and linguistic anthropology. Coverage is from the late 19th century to the present.

Architecture

Title	Brief description	Format
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals	Comprehensive listing of journal articles on architecture and design, including the history and practice of architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, historic preservation, and interior design and decoration. The American and international journals indexed include not only scholarly and popular periodical literature, but also publications of professional associations, American state and regional periodicals, and the major serials on architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Coverage is mainly from 1934 to the present, with selective coverage back to 1741.
Buildings of England (Pevsner)	Provides information on buildings and artefacts in England, such as location, period, architect etc. Also serves as a comprehensive index to the printed volumes of Pevsner's Buildings of England, from which all of the information on the database is drawn.
Oxford Reference Online (Premium Collection)	Over 100 specialist and general reference dictionaries covering a wide range of subjects. Includes a dictionary of architecture.

Archives

Title	Brief description	Format
A2A (Access to Archives)	The A2A database contains catalogues describing archives held throughout England and dating from the 900s to the present day.
Comintern Archive	An index to the archive and microform collections held at the Russian Centre for the Conservation and Study of Records of Modern History. The Comintern Archive contains original documents from over 35 communist and left-socialist parties, together with other international organisations from 21 different countries. It covers the entire period of the Comintern's existence, from 1919 to 1943.
History of Parliament	The history of parliament from 1386-1820. Includes illustrations, essays, and biographical entries for members of parliament.
Iter Italicum	Lists previously uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued Renaissance humanistic manuscripts found in libraries and collections all over the world. Originally published in six volumes between 1963 and 1992.
Russian State Archive of Literature and Art	Contains material relating to writers, artists, actors, dramatists, musicians, film makers and others in the cultural domain from the 18th to 20th centuries. It also contains over 500 rare photographs and engravings from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Art and Design

Title	Brief description	Format
ARTbibliographies Modern	Full abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogues, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art. Entries date back as far as the late 1960s.
Art Index	An index of articles from periodicals, yearbooks and museum bulletins in English language and a wide range of other languages. The database also indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals. Period covered: 1984 to date.
Art Index Retrospective	Art Index Retrospective is a cumulative index to Art Index covering the period 1929 - 1984.
Art Sales Catalogues Online	Online version of Lugt's Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques, which lists art sales catalogues published 1600 to 1900. With full digital facsimiles of nearly 24,000 catalogues.
Artists of the World Online	Presents biographical information on approximately 270,000 artists, based on articles in the major printed biographical works by Thieme & Becker and by Vollmer, plus all articles from the published volumes of the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon.
Bibliography of the History of Art	Indexes and abstracts art-related books, conference proceedings and dissertations, exhibition and dealer's catalogues, and articles from over 1,400 periodicals. The product of collaboration between the Getty Research Institute of the J. Paul Getty Trust and the French Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. It includes and extends the coverage of its two predecessor art indexes: Répertoire d'Art et d'Archéologie (RAA) from 1973 to 1989 and International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA) from 1975 to 1989.
Credo Reference (formerly Xreferplus)	Credo Reference (formerly Xreferplus) is an online reference library that provides access to a large number of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and other reference books. Subjects covered include art, biography, history, literature, music, religion, and science and technology.
Design and Applied Arts Index	Annotated references from more than 500 design and craft journals and data on over 50,000 designers, craftspeople, studios, workshops, firms etc. 1973-
The Grand Tour	Accounts of the English abroad, c1550-1850, highlighting the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature & philosophy. Includes written accounts & visual representations of street life.
Grove Art Online	An online reference resource for all aspects of the visual arts from prehistory to the present day.
Index of Christian Art	An index of works of art from apostolic times to AD 1400.
Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals	Covers 42 periodicals published in the United States during the 19th century, and indexes the entire contents of each issue-articles, art notes, illustrations, stories, poems, and advertisements.
Lugt's Répertoire online	The Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques by Frits Lugt lists more than 100,000 art sales catalogues from libraries in Europe and the USA and covers the period 1600 to 1925. Search options include date, place of sale, provenance, auction house, content and library locations. Included in Art Sales Catalogues Online.
Oxford Reference Online (Premium Collection)	Over 100 specialist and general reference dictionaries covering a wide range of subjects. Includes the Oxford dictionary of art, the Oxford companion to Western art and other works.
Russian Avant-Garde	The most comprehensive collection of Russian Literary avant-garde publications. This collection includes representative works from all Russian literary avant-garde schools. It comprises almost 800 books, periodicals and almanacs most of them published between 1910 and 1940, and thus offers a varied and well-balanced overview of one of the most versatile movements in Russian literature. The books in this collection can be regarded as objects of art, illustrated by famous artists such as Malevich, Goncharova and Lisitskii. Published by IDC as part of the series Mass Culture and Entertainment in Russia. NB. Printing should be from within the PDF application (not the web browser).
SCIPIO	International union catalogue listing sale catalogues held in libraries world-wide, but with a strong American emphasis. The sale catalogues described relate primarily to sales of books and art works at auction throughout Europe and North America from the late 16th century to the present day.
Underground & Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels	A scholarly online collection for researchers of adult comic books and graphic novels. Beginning with the first underground comix from the 1960s to the work of modern sequential artists to the present day, content is supplemented by interviews, criticism, and journal articles. Note: contains graphic material that some may find offensive.
Vogue Archive	Entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day, including all text, graphics, ads, covers and fold-outs, indexed and in colour. Contents represent the work of designers, photographers, stylists and illustrators of the 20th and 21st centuries and are a primary source for the study of fashion, gender and modern social history.
World Biographical Dictionary of Artists	See Artists of the World Online

Australian studies

Title	Brief description	Format
AustLit	AustLit indexes and describes Australian literature (from 1780 to the present) published in a range of print and electronic information sources. It includes biographical and bibliographical information, and also makes available selected critical articles and creative writing in full text.
Australian records in the USPG archive	Records relating to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel's activities in Australia. The records are mainly from the mid 19th century and cover the development of the Church of Australia.
Informit	Informit indexes and provides access to the full text of articles relating to Australasian scholarly research in a number of fields, including: public affairs, law, education, health, the family, library and information science, sport, criminology and immigration.