1. Local Archives  Local Archives Offices contain an enormous amount of information including Census records, newspapers and property records. They are a useful point of call when either verifying information found on the internet or conducting deeper research beyond what is available on the main sources of family history such...

The University of Manchester gives the following advice on courses, careers and funding: Courses The choice for post-graduate courses is much more limited for archives and records management compared to those available for libraries and information studies. The Society of Archivists recommends just six: University College London, University College Dublin,...

Please note: the HA is not responsible for the content of external websites, and we cannot guarantee that all information on this page is current. University College LondonMA/Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information StudiesIf you want to progress in library or information work, you need a professional qualification, normally chartered...

For advice and information about working as a Librarian or Information Professional, take a look at the following information from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) website. CILIP is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers. They provide practical support for members throughout their careers...

Reading List for those interested in research methods in heritage, museums and galleries from Newcastle University... Essential Reading Dicks, Bella, From Mine to Museum: The Evolution of Heritage in the Rhondda in Heritage, place, and community by Dicks, Bella University of Wales Press, 2000  Dicks, Bella, Heritage and Local Memory in...

A series of short guides to different types of public and other records, including rate books, wills, probate inventories and poll books.

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles The collecting of stories through written record is one of the most important methods societies...

John Coffey shows us what insights can be gained from the diaries of leading abolitionist, William Wilberforce. The diary is a distinctively modern genre... In English, the first diaries date from the Tudor era, but it is in the seventeenth century that the trickle becomes a flood. Alongside the famous...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles Most of us are aware...

Prior to the East European revolutions of 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, commentators outside the region were largely reliant on printed material collected by specialist research libraries, informal rrangements with contacts ‘behind the iron curtain’, information that could be gleaned from visits to the region, and...

Tim Lomas was correct when he said, in his article in the Summer 2019 edition of The Historian, that historians can see much more in medieval documents than the scribes intended.  Lay manors in Bedfordshire are a good example. Eggington manor, in the south-west, was part of a larger estate and held...

When I first visited Gladstone’s residential library in 1977 for a pre-university History degree reading week, I barely knew who Gladstone was. I had just come back from a holiday in Italy and the contrast between Florence and Hawarden, a Welsh border town, was startling. I came from the sunny remains...

Last month the Georgian Papers Programme released a new virtual exhibition available online. Exploring the myth and reality of the alleged ‘madness of King George III’, the exhibition is an interesting step in examining the past and exploring its relevance for contemporary discourses. Entitled ‘George III: the Eighteenth Century’s Most...

Tim Lomas explores some documents from the Bishop and Priory of Durham that shed interesting light on the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in medieval England. It is largely a truism to state that the majority of documents from medieval Britain were not designed to shed much light on the lives...

Many fascinating individuals appear in the British Library’s Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition – Bede, Alfred, Canute, Emma, William the Conqueror – but one deserves to be much better known, especially in this her anniversary year: one of the most important women in British history, hers is a classic case of the...

The riches of surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts showcased in a fabulous new exhibition at the British Library emphasises the essential interconnections between England and the Continent.

The Sheffield Branch of the Historical Association is a very active one. In addition to our monthly meetings we organise a range of study visits, from one-day trips to longer residential tours in the UK and occasionally in mainland Europe. In recent years, these have included visits to Portsmouth, Lincoln and Newark, Newcastle and Northumberland, and the battlefields of Waterloo....

The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) is the most extensive guide available to published writing on British and Irish history.  It covers the history of British and Irish relations with the rest of the world, including the British empire and the Commonwealth, as well as British and Irish...

For advice and information about working in Archives, take a look at the following information from the Archives and Records Association website. The Archives and Records Association is the leading professional body for archivists, archive conservators and records managers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The principal aims of the Society are: to...

In the last two decades or so there has been a movement towards digitising large collections of original sources. These projects have had a range of purposes, approaches and target audiences but there can be little doubt that they have had a profound impact on the practice of history in...