Web Recommendations: History
Web Recommendations: History
Virtual specialist libraries
A centralised online specialist portal for the historical sciences in the German-speaking world. Structured indexing and presentation of content combine specialist historical information with opportunities for interaction. A meta-search engine enables users to search the systematically indexed specialist databases and websites.
More than 50 historians and librarians have created this online handbook, a new resource designed to provide an introduction to digital specialist information for the discipline of history.
The History Guide of the Lower Saxony State and University Library in Göttingen has been publicly accessible since 1997. It is a subject catalogue of websites relevant to the study of history.
The regional scope of the catalogue broadly covers ‘Western history’, focusing primarily on Central and Western Europe, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada and the USA, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Only a few websites relating to other historical regions have been included.
Further development of a DFG-funded project (formerly the ‘Early Modern Period Server’) at the Bavarian State Library: offers thematic portals, electronic journals, materials for teaching and learning, and extensive collections of links.
A new addition is the ‘European History’ search engine, which allows simultaneous searches across various historically relevant databases and catalogues on general and European history.
A moderated network for professional historians. Key resources for specialist historical information in the German-speaking world: conference reports, events, tables of contents for specialist journals, online reviews of recent historical literature, websites and a discussion forum. Coordinated by the Institute of History at Humboldt University, Berlin.
The aim of the German Digital Library (DDB) is to provide everyone with free access via the internet to Germany’s cultural and academic heritage – that is, to millions of books, archival materials, images, sculptures, musical works and other audio documents, films and sheet music. As a central national portal, the DDB is intended to link together the digital resources of all German cultural and academic institutions in the future.
British History Online is the digital library containing some of the key printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles.
The oldest international portal for historical resources on the internet.
Middle Ages
Richly illustrated texts and numerous videos featuring academic experts offer an insight into the world of academia and provide access to the diverse fields of work within medieval history.
Mediaevum.de is an internet portal for students and academics specialising in Germanic and Latin medieval studies. The portal, which is constantly updated, has now become the most comprehensive meta-site on Old German studies in the German-speaking world. It currently comprises more than 600 web links, each presented and commented on in brief descriptions.
Compiled at Georgetown University, Washington (DC).
Compiled at the Catholic University of America, Washington (DC).
The REGESTA IMPERII (RI) records all the activities of the Roman-German kings and emperors, from the Carolingians to Maximilian I (c. 751–1519), as well as those of the popes of the early and high Middle Ages, in the form of German-language regesta.
Another key resource here is the OPAC. The RI OPAC is a freely accessible, interdisciplinary bibliographic database for medieval research across the entire European-speaking world.
16th–19th centuries
Due to its origins – historicum.net emerged from the ‘Early Modern Period Server’ – the focus of the topics covered is on the Early Modern Period.
Nationwide access in Germany to ProQuest’s Early English Books Online database is made possible by funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and organised by the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library in Frankfurt am Main.
Ranging from the very first book ever published in the English language right through to Spenser and Shakespeare, this extensive collection already comprises more than 100,000 of the 125,000 books listed in the short-title catalogues of Polard & Redgrave (1475–1640) and Wing (1641–1700). In addition, it includes titles from the Thomason Tracts Collection (1640–1661) and the Early English Books Tract Supplement.
The following subjects are covered: English studies, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, art, education, mathematics and the natural sciences.
20th century
The portal provides information on new research trends and current debates within the subject of contemporary history. It addresses social discussions and issues and contributes to their historical contextualisation. Zeitgeschichte-online reflects on how contemporary historical topics are dealt with by the public and in the media, and observes changes in the culture of remembrance.
is a reference work on key terms, concepts, research areas and methods in contemporary history research. The portal is technically developed and editorially managed by the Centre for Contemporary History Research in Potsdam (ZZF).
Part of “Clio-online”. The portal provides direct and rapid access to the subject. It brings together full-text documents, library-based resources, internet directories and other resources for targeted information retrieval.
Eastern European history
osmikon provides comprehensive academic information on the history, culture, politics and society of the countries and regions of Eastern Europe. It is the successor to the Virtual Specialised Library on Eastern Europe (ViFaOst).
The online encyclopaedia is a co-operation project between the Institute for German Studies at the University of Oldenburg and the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe. It is a multidisciplinary specialist encyclopaedia which – designed to transcend geographical boundaries – covers regions and periods relevant to the history and culture of Germans in Eastern Europe.
Teaching methodology
Recommended reading and links for the study of history didactics and for the practice of teaching history. Provided by Prof. Dr Hilke Günther-Arndt (retired university lecturer in history didactics at the University of Oldenburg)
New website from the Oldenburgische Landschaft. Among other things, it offers an overview of the history of the Oldenburg region and teaching resources for all school years available for download.
The Lower Saxony education portal is managed by NiLS (Lower Saxony State Office for Teacher Training and School Development).
The website is aimed at teachers, trainee teachers, students, teacher trainers, education policymakers, those with an interest in education policy, and subject didactics specialists. The portal is run by the association sowi-online e.V., Bielefeld.
Information from the disciplines of political science, sociology and economics is indexed and made available in full text; as are subject-specific didactic articles from the fields of the didactics of political education, economics didactics (or the didactics of Economics Education) and the didactics of the social sciences.
Managed by the Department of History at Leibniz University Hannover. It offers methodological guidance, further reading, internet projects and sources. It covers various systematic, regional and historical themes, as well as providing a general introduction to the study of history.
Good collections of teaching materials, forums for teachers and pupils, etc.
Books
Nationwide access to ProQuest’s Early English Books Online database is made possible by funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and organised by the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library in Frankfurt am Main.
Ranging from the very first book ever published in the English language right through to Spenser and Shakespeare, this extensive collection already comprises more than 100,000 of the 125,000 books listed in the short-title catalogues of Polard & Redgrave (1475–1640) and Wing (1641–1700). Added to these are the titles from the Thomason Tracts collection (1640–1661) and the Early English Books Tracts Supplement.
The following subject areas are covered: English studies, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, art, education, mathematics and the natural sciences.
Reference works
‘Oekonomische Encyklopädie oder allgemeines System der Staats-, Stadt-, Haus- und Landwirthschaft’ is the title of one of the most comprehensive encyclopaedias in the German-speaking world. Founded by J. G. Krünitz, the work was published in 242 volumes between 1773 and 1858 and represents one of the most important German-language sources on the history of science for the period of transition to an industrial society.
As part of a digitisation project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), ‘the Krünitz’ is being made available at Trier University Library in the form of an XML/SGML-compliant and searchable electronic full-text version.
The *Universal-Lexicon*, published by Johann Heinrich Zedler, is by far the most comprehensive encyclopaedic work produced in 18th-century Europe. The lexicon’s 64 volumes and 4 supplementary volumes contain around 284,000 articles and 276,000 cross-references across approximately 63,000 two-column folio pages. The articles cover the entire spectrum of knowledge.
The version of the *Universal-Lexicon* published here was digitised and catalogued as part of a project carried out by the Bavarian State Library between 1999 and 2001, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). As part of a co-operation project between the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel and the Bavarian State Library, all 284,000 articles were organised by subject between 2004 and 2007, enabling searches by category.
The ‘Deutsche Biographie’ German online resource offers structured, expert encyclopaedic knowledge on more than 90,000 historical figures from all areas of public life. It currently comprises digital full-text versions of more than 46,000 historical-biographical articles from the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB, 56 volumes, 1875–1912) and the New German Biography (NDB, 22 volumes available online to date, from 1953, Aachen to Schinkel).
A project of the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Bavarian State Library, funded by the DFG from 2007 to 2009.
Provides online access to the Brothers Grimm’s German dictionary, the Goethe Dictionary and others. A project of the Centre of Excellence for Electronic Indexing and Publication Methods in the Humanities at the University of Trier.
LeMO is an online portal covering German history from the 19th century to the present day. Objects, texts, media, eyewitness accounts and documents invite users to discover, research and learn. Under ‘LeMO Learning’, educational resources are provided to enable LeMO to be used more effectively in schools and the classroom.
A joint initiative of the German Historical Museum (Berlin), the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn) and the Federal Archives
Magazines
Access to the electronic journals for which the University Library has acquired licences. Direct access to the History subject area.
Access to the electronic journals for which the University Library has acquired licences. Direct access for the subjects Classical Philology, Byzantine Studies, Medieval Latin and Modern Greek Philology, and Neo-Latin.
University publications
At the library of the University of Oldenburg, the publications of academics employed at the university are continuously catalogued and fully listed in the online catalogue.
Miscellaneous
HGIS Germany is a historical-geographical information system organised on a territorial basis, which charts the development of the member states of the German Confederation (or the North German Confederation/German Empire) from 1820 to 1914. The geographical data is linked to historical information, such as population figures, economic data, dynastic connections and multimedia descriptions of the states.
It is being developed at the Institute of History in Mainz (IEG) and at the Institute for Spatial Information and Measurement Technology (i3mainz) at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. The German Historical Museum (DHM) is a cooperation partner.
A network for historical GIS projects. Among other things, it provides access to electronic historical maps and statistics.
Digitised maps from the State and University Library of Bremen.
A good and comprehensive collection of links from the University of Texas.
Libraries
GBV – Joint Library Network of the states of Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia.
Union catalogue and access to online interlibrary loans
Provides simultaneous access to union catalogues in Germany, selected foreign catalogues and a number of booksellers’ databases.
Within the system of supra-regional literature provision, the DFG has divided the entire field of knowledge into over 120 collection specialisms, which in turn have been allocated to three central specialist libraries, as well as over 23 state and university libraries and a number of smaller specialist libraries, with the requirement that to acquire the scientifically relevant literature as comprehensively as possible for these specialised collection areas.
From 2016, there will be a gradual transition to the ‘Specialised Information Services for the Sciences’.
Archives
Compiled by the Marburg School of Archival Studies (Institute of Archival Science, University of Applied Sciences for Archival Studies)
Museums
List of cultural and natural heritage sites to be protected, by country.
German Museum Association – Member Museums
Over 900 museums and institutions are corporate members of the German Museum Association.
- German Historical Museum, Berlin
House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn
Museums in the region:
- Museums in Lower Saxony and Bremen
- Esterwegen Memorial
Discussion forums
H-Soz-Kult is a moderated information and communication platform for historians, publishing specialised news and publications online.
It is coordinated by the Institute of History at Humboldt University of Berlin.
A daily online discussion forum focusing on scholarly topics in German history. The primary purpose of H-German is to enable scholars in history and related disciplines to easily share current research and research interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and analytical tools; and to explore these issues as they relate to the teaching of German history.
List of discussion lists of historical interest on the English-language H-Net.
Job Forum
List of links from ‘Clio-online’.
- Jobs
Jobs listed on H-Soz-Kult
Interdisciplinary job search engine run by the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT.