Mass Observation Online provides access to one of the most important archives for the study of social history in the modern era. From the end of the ‘Hungry Thirties’ to the onset of the Second World War, the Blitz and the post-War world of consumerism and television, Mass Observation Online captures the daily lives, hopes and expectations of British society and beyond during the mid-20^th century. This resource would particularly appeal to anyone studying History, Literature, Sociology, Anthropology or Political Science.

Mass Observation Online comprises of:

File Reports, 1937-1972 – a complete set of over 2,000 full-text searchable documents, providing summaries of the findings of Mass Observation studies on an immense range of subjects, from cinema-going, fashion, radio and music to sex, marriage, politics and more.

Topic Collections, 1937–1965 – represent the ‘raw materials’ behind many of Mass Observation’s published studies and include questionnaires, interviews and observations as well as contemporary ephemera on subjects ranging from reading, holidays, dreams, gambling, and smoking habits to sexual behaviour, propaganda, capital punishment and the Korean War.

The ‘Worktown Collection’ – the first study of ‘working class’ Britain ever undertaken, focusing on the cities of Bolton and Blackpool between 1937 and 1940. Includes a wide selection of photographs by Humphrey Spender.

Mass Observation’s Publications – many now out of print, these books appeared during Mass Observation’s first period of activity, 1937-1950.

Diaries – the most intimate and detailed records of the day-to-day lives of respondents during and immediately after World War II.

The Day Surveys, 1937-1938 – written by Mass Observation’s National Panel of over 500 observers, these diaries record the events of a single day.

Directives, 1939-1955 – responses to wide-ranging questions on topics such as race, class, religion, politics, the atomic bomb and World War II.

Mass Observation Online is accessible via the library catalogue and the Electronic Library.

Our Facebook competition for April features a question on Mass Observation Online. Enter at https://www.facebook.com/UoELibrary and be in with the chance of winning a £20 Blackwell’s gift card.

We are currently trialling a service called Browzine until the end of February.  This will allow you to easily search our online journals from your tablet.

To access, please download BrowZine from either the Google Play (Android Tablet) or Apple App Store (iPad) and search for “BrowZine”.  It is totally free software.

Then, select University of Exeter from the list and put in your university login and password.

Please note that you MUST use your Exeter “IT Credentials”.  We do not support the “check the box and put in the library card number & pin” option.

Then you should be able to browse our online journal collection with ease on your tablet, it allows you to:

• Easily read complete scholarly journals in a format that is optimized for tablet devices
• Create a personal bookshelf of favourite journals
• Be alerted when new editions of journals are published
• Easily save to Zotero, Mendeley, Dropbox and other services

Please note it is currently not compatible with mobile phones.

We’d love to know what you think of this service, is it easy to use, useful or not – so please send us your feedback to

During February Routledge Research are making 300 titles from across the Social Sciences available to view online in their entirety for completely free.

Content includes:

Asian and Middle East Studies

1. Asian History
2. Central Asian, Russian & Eastern European Studies
3. Chinese Studies
4. Middle East Studies
5. South Asian Studies

Business

1. Marketing
2. Organizational Studies
3. Public and Consumer Studies
4. Management
5. Corporate Studies

Economics

1. Economic Theory & Philosophy
2. Environmental Economics
3. History of Economic Thought
4. Industrial Economics
5. International Economics

Law

1. Human Rights Law
2. International Law
3. Legal Theory
4. Socio-Legal Studies
5. Criminal Law and Criminology
6. European Law

Military and Strategic Studies

1. Critical Security
2. International Security
3. Security Studies
4. Terrorism and Political Violence
5. War and Conflict Studies

Politics

1. Comparative Politics
2. European Politics
3. International Political Economy
4. Political Philosophy
5. Politics & International Relations

Use  the Routledge catalogue to find out more about the titles available to you.

Using this catalogue you can:

• View all titles in their entirety for Free by clicking the blue  button located on every book detail page.

• Bring up the full details for every book, including blurbs, table of contents, author bios and reviews

• Save books to your booklist and email to friends or colleagues or save as a spreadsheet for your reference

Did you know that the University Library has access to Global Commodities?

Global Commodities brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices. The commodities featured include chocolate, coffee, spices, sugar and timber.

Global Commodities is accessible via our Electronic Library and the library catalogue.

Don’t forget that if you need help using this resource or any other library resources then your Subject Librarian will be happy to help. Find out more on our Subject Guides page.

Did you know that the University Library has a subscription to ARTstor? ARTstor is a resource that provides over 1.6 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities and sciences. The collections include contributions from outstanding international museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, artists and artists’ estates.

The project began in 2001, after the demise of the slide projector during the previous decade. ARTstor was founded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create a shared, non-commercial repository of teaching and research images from the collections of hundreds of educational institutions. Collection highlights include images from the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Bodleian Library, and George Eastman House, to name but a few.

The images are high-resolution, and there are also software tools that make ARTstor valuable for teaching and research. For example, it’s possible to:

• zoom in on and pan images
• view 360˚ panoramas of world architecture using Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR)
• organise images into groups
• download images to PowerPoint for use in presentations
• export the citations for images or image groups into referencing software such as EndNote

The wide range of images available, drawn from varied collections, means that ARTstor is a useful resource for students and academics from across many disciplines. So, whether you study art history or anthropology, Classics or politics, religion or literature, take a look at ARTstor – you might find something of interest there.

ARTstor is accessible via our Electronic Library and the library catalogue. Don’t forget that if you need help using this resource or any other library resources then your Subject Librarian will be happy to help. Find out more on our Subject Guides page.