This is part of an occasional series highlighting some of the online resources available at the Library that will be of interest to students and staff in History, Classics and Archaeology.
While previous posts in this series have looked at groups of online primary source collections, in this post I wanted to highlight resources that give you access to film and moving images, including films, documentaries, TV programmes, public information films, archival film footage, cinema newsreels, advertising, home movies, etc.
Film provides a fascinating insight into the past through documentary, archival and amateur film footage and a deliberately constructed historical world through feature films. However, using film as ‘historical evidence’ is far from straightforward; specific skills are required to understand the complexities of the visual medium, its relationship to the society from which it emerges, the industry which created it and those who consumed it. Despite these obstacles, film is a crucial means for understanding the recent past.1
And finally…Adam Matthew have given the Library trial access to their just released resource Socialism on Film. This impressive collection of documentaries, newsreels and features reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, British and Latin American film makers. Documenting the communist world from the Russian Revolution until the 1980s and covering all aspects of socialist life.
You can access the database via the E-resources trials page. Access is available both on and off-campus.
I’m pleased to let you know that the Library currently has trial access to the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive®.
You can access this online archive via the E-resources trials page. You must register with the site to get access. Access is available on-campus or off-campus if using VPN.
Trial access ends 30th November 2016.
The Visual History Archive® is a collection of audiovisual interviews with witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides and it allows users to search through and view more than 50,000 of these video testimonies. Continue reading →