What’s new in BBIH?
The February 2024 update to the Bibliography of British and Irish History adds 4,115 new publications. The new update includes books, journal articles, book chapters, and edited collections covering all areas of British and Irish history, from 55 BCE to the present day.
These updates bring the total number of BBIH records to 654,285. The February 2024 update includes:
- 3,389 titles that were published between 2018 and 2024
- 194 publications relating to Scottish history
- 2,016 publications about the histories of England and Wales, including 111 publications about the history of Wales and 1,966 publications focusing on England
- 500 publications focusing on Irish history, including 33 publications focusing on Northern Ireland
- 602 new records for ‘Imperial and Commonwealth’, of which 317 records discuss the colonial histories of Asia and 59 records refer to histories of colonial Australasia
BBIH and LGBTQ+ histories
February is LGBT+ History Month and the Bibliography contains over 1,200 resources for LBGTQ+ and queer histories, with the February 2024 update containing 21 new publications.
You can explore these histories further by:
- Using the LGBT+ History Month online reading list created by the Bibliography’s editors and Brepols. The full reading list contains 533 books, articles, and chapters published between 2010 and 2022.
- Reading Dr Leah Veronese’s piece for On History about how BBIH can be used to teach representations of queerness.
BBIH and women’s histories
March will be Women’s History Month. The Bibliography contains over 36,500 resources focusing on a wide variety of topics within women’s history, with the February 2024 update containing 615 new publications.
Delve into this area of research further by:
- Exploring the Women’s History Month online reading list created by the Bibliography’s editors and Brepols. The full reading list contains 553 books, articles, and chapters published between 2010 and 2022.
- Reading Dr Giacomo Savani’s piece for On History about how they used BBIH to research gender and bathing in antiquity.
BBIH and the histories of Dalits, mathematics, poetry, and pets
In April there are international observances for the histories of India’s Dalits or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, of mathematics and statistics, of poetry and of pets. You can research all these areas in the BBIH, which contains:
- Over 10,200 publications about the histories of poetry, with the February 2024 update containing 199 new publications.
- 25 publications about the history of Dalit communities.
- 175 publications about the histories of mathematics and statistics. You can also explore the history of mathematics online reading list created by the Bibliography’s editors and Brepols. The full reading list contains 426 books, articles, and chapters published between 2010 and 2022.
- 93 publications about the history of pets.
Get the most out of using BBIH
With the new academic year in full swing, you can learn more about using BBIH in your research or teaching by visiting our page of online tutorials. Our short video tutorials include:
- The basics of searching, including how to use the subject tree
- How to use your results
- How to keep up-to-date with the latest published research in your field or manage your reference lists or bibliographies
- Behind-the-scenes guide to how BBIH is compiled
There are also short video guides designed for:
- New undergraduates and those planning and researching a final year dissertation
- MA and PhD students for whom BBIH is essential for writing a literature review and studying secondary fields of interest
Lecturers, teachers, and librarians will find it helpful that the Bibliography’s online tutorials can all be embedded in a virtual learning environment (VLE). Presentations are also available here to promote the Bibliography to your students and staff.
About the Bibliography of British and Irish History
The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) is the largest and most comprehensive guide available to what’s been written about British and Irish history, from the early 1900s to the present day.
It’s an essential resource for research and teaching, providing up-to-date information (and links) on over 650,000 history books, articles, chapters, edited collections, and theses. New records are added in three annual updates. These records are searchable by a wide range of facets including: title, author, chronology, date and form of publication, historical topic, and geographical region.
The Bibliography is a research project of the IHR and the Royal Historical Society, and is published by Brepols. BBIH is a subscription service and is available remotely via university and research libraries worldwide.
Images: cecilie-johnsen-G8CxFhKuPDU-unsplash from Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash; red-dot-qRg7gxhDaR0-unsplash from Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash; Swasti Desai – Dalits, WikiCommons CC BY-SA 4.0