HIS 976 Senior Seminar VII fall 2023

TMU Libraries Omni Search
For optimum use, sign in. This search engine searches for journal articles (many are available electronically), books, e-books, theses and dissertations, and newspaper articles from some recent and a selection of archival newspapers. It indexes digitized content such as out-of-copyright books and journals that are available from sources such as The Internet Archive and The Hathi Trust. Omni facilitates discovery and borrowing of print books from other universities in Ontario excluding the University of Toronto.

Refine your search using the filters on the left.

For more advanced searching across a more targeted set of resources, you may want to try a discipline specific indexing/abstracting database or collection as listed in the next boxes.

National Names:
While United Kingdom (or the fuller United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) may be an official name, Library of Congress continues to use the older terminology: Great Britain.  For the constituent portions of the UK, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, you may also find entries listed under the regional geographic entities.

Omni, Browse Search, Library of Congress subject headings:

Great Britain Politics and government 1837-1901 [period corresponding to the reign of Victoria]
Great Britain Politics and government 1901-1910 [corresponds to the reign of Edward VII]
Great Britain Social life and customs 19th century

London (England) [the correct form is to place the geographic qualifier England in (brackets), however Omni users must omit the brackets for best results]
London England Buildings, structures, etc.
London England History
London England Social conditions 19th century

Thames River England 
London County Council [this is a corporate body]

Booth Charles [you can also search Booth, Charles as a personal name and you'll find some works he authored]

Headings that take the form:

[topic] Great Britain History [century or time period]
Working class Great Britain History 19th century
Poor children Great Britain History

[topic] England London History [century or time period]
Department stores England London History
Historic buildings England London
Poor children England London History
Sewerage England London History
Streets England London
 

Some sample Omni keyword searches:

urban history england
urban history england [Omni, Advanced search, Subject contains ...]
social reformers england
social reformers england [Omni, Advanced search, Subject contains ...]
diaries london england
diaries london england [Omni, Advanced search, Subject contains...]
local government london england
victorian london
​victorian fashion
edwardian london
​police london history
police london history [Omni, Advanced search, Subject contains...}
 

Encyclopedias and dictionaries

remain useful sources of quick information.  In addition to free sources such as Wikipedia, consider some of our licensed electronic content from publishers such as Oxford University Press, as well as printed items. 

Try using Omni, Advanced Search and Subject contains: [type a topical word or words] and either dictionaries, or, encyclopedias

Example Subject contains searches:

• london england encyclopedias​
• place names london england

Example Library of Congress subject heading searches:

• Great Britain History Dictionaries
• Great Britain History Encyclopedias
• Great Britain History Chronology

Biographical information

Consider these resources:

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004, 61 vols.) Supplements for recently deceased (2001-2004) & (2005-2008)
• Dictionary of Labour Biography
• Who's Who (Great Britain, for living persons)
• Abridged Biography and Genealogy Master Index (1988)

Example Omni Browse search by Library of Congress subject heading:

• Great Britain Biography Portraits

Historical Maps and Atlases

Try Library of Congress subject headings such as:

• London England Maps

The David Rumsey Map Collection makes accessible historic maps of North and South America

The Toronto Public Library (TPL) has ongoing subscriptions to many biographical resources as well other dictionaries and encyclopedias that are not available at Toronto Metropolitan University. Many of the resources are located at the Toronto Reference Library situated just north of Bloor Street on Yonge Street.

The Internet Archive collects digitized books, pamphlets, and audio and other files. It is especially useful when searching for an English language printed book published before 1925 that are in the public domain or out of copyright. These can be downloaded free of charge. There are many more current publications available as "Books to Borrow" that are part of a Controlled Digital Lending Program whereby a library digitizes a book that is in copyright, stores the original and only circulates the digital copy to one user at a time. These may be available for one hour at a time, or "borrowable" for 7 or 14 days. In order to use these borrowable titles you need to create a free account [see the upper right area of the homepage www.archive.org] and download the free app for Adobe Digital Editions. This is what is used to track your available days of use. You can "return" the book early so that someone else can use it.

Here is a sample search in the Internet Archive for great exhibition 1851