Databases

OpenBook Publishers is a not-for-profit Social Enterprise run by academics who are committed to making high-quality research available to readers around the world. Monographs and textbooks in all subject areas are published and all books are available to read free online.

Major online periodical archive that makes the backfiles of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences available electronically. PAO contains over 700 journals spanning more than two centuries of content, 37 key subject areas, and multiple languages. McMaster's subscription includes PAO collections 1-10.

Provides the text of over 170 plays originally published by Playwrights Canada Press after 1984.  While located in Ontario, the Press is proud of its list of published playwrights that stretches from Newfoundland to British Columbia and the Yukon. Playwrights Canada Press also publishes French plays by Canadian authors in English translation, and includes theatre for young audiences.

A collection of over 670 full-text scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Individual journal titles are accessible through the library catalogue (Omni).

Cross-search over 50 indexing, abstracting, and full-text databases in a range of subjects.

Includes the backfile of Rolling Stone, one of the most influential consumer magazines of the 20th-21st centuries, spanning music, politics, society, entertainment, film, and popular culture. Coverage is from its launch in 1967, with ongoing addition of new issues.

Includes over 40 high-definition online videos of William Shakespeare’s plays featuring the world’s best Shakespearean actors, like David Tennant, Sir Antony Sher, Paapa Essiedu, and Simon Russell Beale, and directors like Robin Lough and Dewi Humphrey. Contains The Tempest, King Lear, Hamlet and other famous performances filmed at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford-upon-Avon theater between 2013 to 2017. 

Contains over 50 million articles from over 23,000 full text journals covering many disciplines.

Located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, the Stratford Festival is the largest classical repertory theatre company in North America. Each season, they present a dozen or more productions in different venues. This collection from Drama Online now offers 14 filmed performances.

Contains more than 250 plays and over 100 video documentaries available online in streaming video. Authors include include Aeschylus, Anderson, Chekov, Cocteau, Garcia Lorca, Genet, Jarry, Moliere, Racine, Shakespeare, Shaw, Sheridan, Voltaire, and more, in productions from the 1930's to the present.

Our subscription provides 8 concurrent users for video streams. When a user starts streaming a video the system takes away one video stream slot from the pool. If the user pauses or stops playing the video the steaming slot is returned to the general pool for other users.

Contains 2,059 plays by 434 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. More than 150 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors. Each play is extensively and deeply indexed, allowing both keyword and multi-fielded searching. The plays are accompanied by reference materials, significant ancillary information, a rich performance database, and images. 

WorldCat is the world's largest library catalogue, merging the holdings of over 72,000 institutions worldwide. Includes records for books, journals, maps, recordings, films, scores, and other materials located in public, academic, corporate, school and specialized libraries all over the world. McMaster's holdings will be listed first. Items not in our library can be requested via Interlibrary Loans.