Research facilities

History researchers benefit from excellent resources in at the University of Liverpool and further afield. Staff and students have access to a book stock of over 1,952,800 items. They are well served by the journal collection, in print and increasingly online.

History benefits from subject specific journal subscriptions and also large multi-disciplinary packages such as JSTOR Arts and Science Collections I,II,II,IV and VII and the Cambridge University Press Journals Full Collection.

The Sydney Jones Library’s Special Collections & Archives holds over 2,000 linear metres of material related to the University, and a host of other material of interest to historians. This includes the Charles Booth papers, the Josephine Butler Collection, pre-World War One children’s books, Cold War texts, the Cunard Archive, English Pamphlets (1685-1727), the Gypsy Lore Collection, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, David Owen Papers, the Peninsular War Collection, Spanish Civil War Collections and its renowned Science Fiction Hub.

The Library’s digital collection is particularly impressive. As well as over 800,000 electronic books, the Library provides access to the electronic databases of several major British and American newspapers and access to many digital archives including Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Collections Online, India Raj and Empire, and Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive. This digital collection grows annually. New digital archives added in the last year include the Telegraph Historical Archive and the Digital National Security Archive.

Our historians have access to a range of important collections in the Liverpool City Region, including the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Liverpool Record Office housed within the recently renovated Central Library, the Liverpool Medical Institution, the Liverpool Athenaeum, and the Maritime Archives and Library, as well as a number of museums, galleries and country houses across the region.

The department facilitates collaborative research through hosting regular seminars, conferences, public lectures and other research events . It supports international exchanges through the ERAMUS+ scheme and its partnership with the Department of History at the University of Georgia, the highlight of which is the Franklin-Liverpool Fellowship, a week-long exchange of teaching and research activities for postgraduate researchers and staff.