As we all work together through an unprecedented situation, Bloomsbury Digital Resources has graciously made all their digitial collections available to the WU Libraries' community through the end of June 2020, at no cost or obligation and on an unlimited access basis.
Here are the collections which are now available to us:
Visual Arts and Design
Bloomsbury Applied Visual Arts - offers instant, searchable access to over 170 books which combine visual inspiration with practical advice on idea generation, research techniques, portfolio development and more, across the main visual arts disciplines, including: Fashion and Textiles, Design and Illustration, Photography, Film and Media, Architecture and Interiors, and Marketing and Advertising.
Bloomsbury Architecture Library offers access to a carefully curated collection of fully-searchable text and image content, incorporating the new edition of Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture, exclusive to the platform and produced in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the University of London.
Bloomsbury Design Library offers an expanding range of authoritative reference and book content, alongside a rich selection of museum object images, which are fully searchable and underpinned by an intuitive taxonomy for seamless navigation. It supports both students and academics by allowing them to explore the history and context of influential design schools, people, periods, places, and disciplines.
History & Social Sciences
Bloomsbury Cultural History offers an authoritative survey of a wide range of subjects throughout history. Each subject is looked at in Antiquity, the Medieval Age, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Age of Empire and the Modern Age and thematic coverage is consistent across all periods so that users can either gain a broad overview of a period or follow a theme through the ages. Subjects will include: Animals, Business, Childhood and Family, Color, Comedy, Disability, Dress and Fashion, Education, Emotions, Fairy Tales, Food, Furniture, Gardens, Genocide, Hair, Home, Human Body, Ideas, Law, Marriage, Medicine, Memory, Money, Objects, Peace, Sea, Senses, Sexuality, Sport, Theater, Tragedy, Western Empires, Women, Work, and Women.
Bloomsbury Food Library offers cross-searchable access to a broad and expanding range of encyclopedias, references works, e-books, images, including: lobal coverage including Ken Albala’s Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia and the Cambridge World History of Food; several major reference works including Bloomsbury’s Cultural History of Food in six volumes and key chapters from Food History: Critical and Primary Sources; over 100 eBooks by key authors in the field including Warren Belasco, Carol J. Adams, Anne Murcott, Rick Wilk, Fabio Parasecoli and Peter Jackson; image collections from leading institutions around the globe including the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University (USA), the National Archives (UK), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA), and specially curated lesson plans and bibliographic guides to assist teaching and research.
Bloomsbury Medieval Studies offers fully-searchable access to a broad range of over 150 scholarly books including primary texts, research monographs, companions and more from Bloomsbury and other top publishers in the field such as IB Tauris, Arc Humanities Press and Amsterdam University Press including: The Encyclopedia of the Global Middle Ages, a new and exclusive reference work written by an international group of scholars which combines thematic overviews, regional overviews and core case studies; exceptional visual sources, including newly-digitized and rare incunabula from Senate House Library, high-resolution medieval maps from the British Library, and 1000 images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a growing selection of study resources curated by major scholars, to be expanded with each product update, and an interactive timeline with a global focus, placing image and text content from across the resource within their time and geographical region.
Churchill Archive Published in collaboration with the Churchill Archives Centre, the Churchill Archive is a digital library of modern international history. It includes more than 800,000 pages of original documents, produced between 1874 and 1965, ranging from Winston S. Churchill’s personal correspondence to his official exchanges with kings, presidents, politicians, and military leaders.
Arcadian Library Online includes two major collections: History of Science and Medicine brings together one of the world’s most important and unique collections of books and manuscripts showcasing the contribution of early Arab and Persian scientists, doctors and thinkers; their translation, reception and influence in Europe and their lasting influence on the development of Western scientific and medical knowledge; and Europe and the Ottoman World brings together a fascinating archive of rare and important diplomatic correspondences, treaties and accounts of ambassadorial missions, many of which are being made available publicly for the first time. Originating from between 1475 and 1877, the collection charts and illustrates the complex relationships between the Ottoman Empire and European powers from the golden age of the Empire's expansion and flourishing through to the era of its decline.
Film, Music, & Performing Arts
Screen Studies comprises an exceptional resource of content from Bloomsbury and Faber & Faber, including award-winning screenplays, critical, contextual and practical books on films and filmmaking from the late nineteenth century to the present, expert overview articles on key themes, and an interactive timeline of cinema history to enhance contextual understanding.
Drama Online introduces new writers alongside the most iconic names in playwriting history, providing contextual and critical background through scholarly works and practical guides. From the epic to the monologue; ensemble to one-person plays; comedy to tragedy; the historical to the contemporary; and from the highly political to the profoundly personal, there is plenty to discover.
Bloomsbury Popular Music - offers access to a broad and expanding range of content, including: multiple volumes from the landmark reference work, Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, with new volumes from top international contributors added regularly; more than 140 volumes of the widely acclaimed 33 1/3 and 33 1/3 Global book series, providing in-depth analysis of influential albums across diverse musical eras, by artists ranging from Caetano Veloso to Public Enemy, an expanding range of scholarly books from Bloomsbury’s popular music studies list, comprising edited volumes, biographies, and historical overviews, and more.
Education and Human Development
Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies - users can easily study and compare countries through six key education levels: early childhood education, childhood, youth, primary education, secondary education, and higher education through: 400+ peer-reviewed articles on six levels of education and childhood across 20+ countries; Country Overview articles that provide accessible introductory information on education; the entire Education Around the World reference series, comprising 18 volumes and covering every single country in the world; 75 academic eBooks on comparative and international education; a collection of over 60 policy reports from the World Bank Group Open Knowledge Repository; links to external resources, educational data, and statistical information, and downloadable tables and enhanced graphs for easy viewing.
Philosophy, Religion & Theology
Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers feature thousands of critical biographical entries on individuals who have contributed to the history of thought and philosophy. Discover a global history that covers a broad range of traditions, subjects, schools of thought, and regions.
Theology & Religion Online offers students and scholars a richly layered resource devoted and dedicated to research, study, and teaching in Theology, Biblical Studies, and Religious Studies. It includes the T&T Clark Theology Library, which offers students and scholars of theology core theological content via primary texts and supporting articles, and T&T Clark Jesus Library, part of Theology and Religion Online, offers students and scholars of religion and biblical studies core resources for studying the life of Jesus and his impact in history and culture. The resource contains a brand new reference work on the Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries as well as topical articles commissioned exclusively for the resource, written by leading academics.
Fashion
Berg Fashion Library – (the only of these collections previously purchased by WU Libraries) - Fully cross-searchable access to Berg content collections – including Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, images, and much more. Of interest to scholars in anthropology, art history, history, sociology, geography, folklore, museum studies, theatre, and cultural studies, fashion and textiles.
Bloomsbury Fashion Business Cases brings fashion business to life and creates a link between education and industry. Designed to help students develop the essential business skills required by the next generation of fashion industry professionals, this digital resource is global in focus and presents real-world cases on challenges facing the business of fashion, tackling important issues such as sustainability, technology, ethics, and leadership. The resource is tailored to provide the tools to steer students toward success as they transition to a career in fashion.
Fashion Photography Archive showcases more than 775,000 newly-digitized and high-quality images that feature forty years of contemporary fashion history along with a timeline, lesson plans, and videos to create a rich educational resource.
Fairchild Books Library offers everything a person needs to know to enter—and thrive—in the fashion industry, Its content covers a full spectrum of topics in fashion including construction, draping, fashion business management, history, illustration, journalism, marketing, promotion, theory, pattern making, styling, product development, sustainable fashion, textiles, and more.
Bloomsbury Fashion Video Archive showcases nearly 3,000 fashion videos from the YOOX-NET-A-PORTER Runway Archive Collections and documents fashion’s most spectacular era, from 1979 to 2003. Collection highlights include Vivienne Westwood’s provocative shows, disruptive innovators Hussein Chalayan and Rei Kawakubo, les enfants terribles Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and the rise of the supermodels. The videos are accompanied by exclusive scholarly articles that provide essential context to the collection, shedding light on key shows, the evolution of trends, iconic designers, and the transformation of runway spectacles to performance art.
eBooks
Bloomsbury Collections delivers online access to scholarly books from Bloomsbury’s award-winning Academic division. Spanning the arts, humanities and social sciences, the site features the latest research publications from Bloomsbury, T&T Clark, The Arden Shakespeare and Hart Publishing, alongside scholarship from historic imprints Continuum, Berg and Bristol Classical Press.