Oxford Dictionary of Family Names during Lockdown

Oxford Dictionary of Family Names during Lockdown

For a short period of time the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names has made its database available for free. "This huge, new dictionary is the ultimate reference work on family names of the UK, covering English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and immigrant surnames. It includes every surname that currently has more than 100 bearers, and those that had more than 20 bearers in the 1881 census."

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Free access to digital record from Kew
History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott

Free access to digital record from Kew

The National Archives are making digital records available on their website free of charge for as long as our Kew site is closed to visitors. Registered users will be able to order and download up to ten items at a time, to a maximum of 50 items over 30 days. The limits are there to try and help manage the demand for content and ensure the availability of our digital services for everyone.

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Free resources on Muse
History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott

Free resources on Muse

In response to the challenges created by the global public health crisis of COVID-19, Project MUSE is pleased to support its participating publishers in making scholarly content temporarily available for free on our platform. With many higher education institutions moving into an exclusively online learning environment for the foreseeable future, we hope that easy access to vetted research in the humanities and social sciences, from a variety of distinguished university presses, societies, and related not-for-profit publishers, will help to support teaching, learning, and knowledge discovery for users worldwide.

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The Rainfall Rescue Project is seeking volunteers
History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott

The Rainfall Rescue Project is seeking volunteers

The UK has rainfall records dating back 200 years or so, but the vast majority of these are in handwritten form and can't easily be used to analyse past periods of flooding and drought. The Rainfall Rescue Project is seeking volunteers to transfer all the data into online spreadsheets. You're not required to rummage through old bound volumes as the Met Office has already scanned the necessary documents - all 65,000 sheets.

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How will a no-deal Brexit affect Library collections?
History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott History and Archives Research Group Jacob Scott

How will a no-deal Brexit affect Library collections?

The Government has recently published advice on how copyright laws will change in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The library will certainly be affected by changes to the management of 'orphan work' images. See the paragraph below for details. If this comes to pass the Library will create a new policy to apply to those requesting the use of orphan works from within our collection.

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