Databases

Features the newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and broadsheets that form the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, United Kingdom. All 296 volumes of bound material, covering the period 1672-1737 have been digitized. This collection charts the history of the development of the press in England and provides invaluable insight into 17th and 18th century England.

This primary sources collection also includes approximately 300 pamphlets and broadsheets, most prevalent in the 1672-1682 period, which illustrate the transition from early newsbook publications to newspaper format. Distributed as stand-alone publications or in combination with a newspaper, these pamphlets cover a broad range of topics such as battles, religious plots, political intrigue, royal speeches and petitions to government.

From zines, newspapers and ephemera, to oral histories, films and photographs, 1980s Culture and Society is an eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, materials produced by grassroots organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade such as the rise of conservatism, nuclear threat, and the AIDS crisis.

Academic Video Online provides nearly 80,000 titles spanning subjects from anthropology to zoology. Curated for curricular relevance, this streaming video database includes feature films, documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs, newsreels, and demonstrations.

Browse by Channels to see what's available by subject or source, or search by title.

Covers migrations, communities, and ideologies of the African Diaspora through the voices of people of African descent. With a focus on communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France, the database includes never-before digitized primary source documents, including personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera.

Database consists of 1,300 cataloged and searchable books, pamphlets, almanacs, broadsides and ephemera that cover the history, peoples, and social and economic changes across Africa from the 16th century to the early 20th century. All areas of Africa and related adjacent regions are covered.

This database features nearly 60 newspapers from across the African continent, all published before 1900.

This database contains nearly 60,000 translated news broadcasts and publications, written by both the people who experienced apartheid in South Africa and those around the world who watched, reacted to, and analyzed it.

A multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities; it fully covers 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, and indexes individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. It contains a current total of over 2.5 million records. Subjects covered include archaeology, art, architecture, Asian studies, classics, dance, folklore, history, language, linguistics, literary reviews, literature, music, philosophy, poetry, radio, television, & film, religion and theatre. As of January 2000, the Arts & Humanities Index contains searchable, full-length, English-language author abstracts.

A fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies including scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books, and much more. It combines essential resources for research and teaching in Black Studies, including The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, Index to Black Periodicals Full Text, Black Literature Index, and the newspaper Chicago Defender.

Supplied by the British Film Institute and Imperial War Museums, this video resource showcases a large collection of newsreels (6,000+) produced by the Topical Film Company. These silent films, which reached a weekly audience of up to five million, offer insights into British life, culture and society with subjects ranging from the First World War, the Royal Family, the Suffragette Movement, and domestic and international politics through to sport, leisure and fashion.

British Periodicals provides access to the searchable full text of British periodicals from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century (the same periodicals as are covered in the UMI microfilm collection "Early British Periodicals"). It includes millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Subject areas covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences.

Cambridge Companions are a series of guides to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics, and periods. With over 600 titles and 4,000 essays, it offers subject or theme based cross-searchable collections, available in three sub-collections: Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics, Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture, and Cambridge Companions to Music.

Cambridge Histories is a series reference works of over 400 volumes spanning fifteen subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, with a concentration on political and cultural history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, music and the arts.

Includes content from a broad range of Canadian sources including scholarly journals, magazines, reports, news, radio & television transcripts and dissertations. Useful for research on hundreds of topics in the fields of business, science and technology, medicine, humanities and the arts.

Curio.ca provides streaming access to selected educational content from CBC and Radio-Canada, with documentaries from television and radio, news reports, and archival material.  Both English and French language content is included.  Programs are pulled from the Doc Zone, The Nature of Things, The Fifth Estate, Marketplace, The Passionate Eye, and more.

Note:  McMaster's subscription does not include the BBC or National Geographic channel.

An online streaming video collection of current, leading British theatre productions, musicals, and operas, including notable works such as the Donmar Shakespeare.

Includes behind-the-scenes documentaries as well as teaching and learning resources to facilitate a deeper understanding of the productions and texts. Learning resources include a detailed introduction, plot summary, character biographies, a relationship map, language analysis, scene study, performance background and historical context for each play.

Streaming video collection of independent, social-issue and environmental films from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution, including titles from Bullfrog Films, Collective Eye, GOOD DOCS, Women Make Movies, and many others.

Drama Online is an award-winning digital library that has been created as a response to the need for a high-quality online research tool for drama and literature students, professors, and teachers. It combines exclusively available playtext content and scholarly publications with filmed live performances, film adaptations and audio plays.

McMaster offers access to: 

Provides access to works printed in Europe before 1701, bringing together a diverse array of printed sources, regardless of language, as well as works published further afield. Full-color, high-resolution facsimile images of some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books in Europe are included. McMaster has access to Collection 3, 5, 6, 10 and 12 of Early European Books.

Cross-search over 30 indexing, abstracting, and fulltext databases in a range of subjects.

Contains primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theatre are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles. Issues have been scanned in high-resolution color, with granular indexing of articles, covers, ads and reviews. Subject coverage includes the film industry, music business, rock and pop, jazz and blues, theatre, television, and radio. McMaster has access to the Cinema, Film and Televsion collection (Parts 1 & 2) and the Music, Radio and Stage collection.

Citations to articles in film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. Provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 380 publications, and selected coverage of 300 more.

Covers industry papers, news journalism, and scholarly academic journals on topics for film and television. Titles include Film Journal International, Journal of British Cinema & Television, Film Criticism, Post Script, and Variety, as well as technical publications such as SMPTE.

Also covers international film and television publications such as Cahiers du Cinema, Cinema in India, Cinemamaya, Filmkultura, Segnocinema, and Kinetoscopio.

Vast collection of folktales, myths, legends, and texts pertaining to folklore, arranged by title and theme, with a focus on northern and western Europe.

This collection of primary source documents captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of settlers and indigenous people living in colonial frontiers of North America, Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand from 1650-1920. More than 20% of the content is Canadian, with over 1,000 documents drawn from the Hudson's Bay Archive and the Glenbow Museum.

Search across Gale's primary source databases, including Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), with links to additional content from ProQuest's Early English Books (EEBO).  Individual databases can also be explored separately or in combination.

Globe on Screen 1&2, available from Drama Online, includes a selection of critically acclaimed performances at Shakespeare’s Globe, founded by the pioneering American actor and director Sam Wanamaker. Dedicated to the exploration of Shakespeare’s work and the theatre for which he wrote, Globe on Screen video collection contains 30 stunning stage productions representing over 75 hours of content. Recorded live on the Globe stage in high definition and surround sound, the videos feature performances from leading actors including Mark Rylance, Stephen Fry, and Roger Allam’s Olivier award-winning role as Falstaff in Henry IV.

Includes the complete runs of the US and UK editions of Harper’s Bazaar, from 1867 to the present (US edition) and 1929-2015 (UK edition). The issues are reproduced as high-resolution color page images and supported by fully searchable text and article-level indexing. The magazine covers over 150 years of American, British, and international fashion, society, and popular culture, facilitating academic research in wide-ranging fields such as women’s studies, fashion, marketing, advertising, material culture, design, and more. It chronicles of some of the most influential work from world-renowned designers, models, photographers,stylists, and illustrators of the period.

As HathiTrust members, McMaster students, faculty and staff have access to a digital repository that includes millions of items from research libraries around the world. The collection includes both in-copyright materials and public domain materials. Full-text material primarily consists of books and other items published before 1923. This includes a large collection of U.S. government documents and a growing collection of Canadian government publications. New material is added daily. 

Provides detailed indexing and abstracts for almost 700 periodicals covering the humanities (of which 470 are peer-reviewed), including feature articles, interviews, bibliographies, obituaries, as well as reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, radio and television programs, plays, operas, and more. Subject coverage includes archaeology, classical studies, art, performing arts, philosophy, history, music, linguistics, literature, and religion. 

Showcases popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period. With articles covering culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues, these historically significant and highly visual magazines provide a rich insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a burgeoning media industry that both shaped and reflected society.