What’s new in BBIH?
The February 2025 update to the Bibliography of British and Irish History adds 3,736 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. This means that BBIH now contains 666,908 records.
The February 2025 update includes:
- 3,080 titles that were published between 2014-2024
- 362 publications relating to Scottish history
- 1,471 publications about the histories of England and Wales, including 212 publications about the history of Wales and 1,296 publications focusing on England
- 559 publications focusing on Irish history, including 81 publications focusing on Northern Ireland
- 500 new records for ‘Imperial and Commonwealth’, of which 166 records discuss the colonial histories of the Americas and 71 records refer to histories of the colonial African nations
New BBIH interface
A new and improved user interface is now available for BBIH. You can learn more about the new interface in this blog by our publisher Brepols.
Several new features have been added to BBIH’s new interface since the last update, including:
- Searching by period covered
- Searching using the subjects and places trees
LGBTQ+ and women’s histories in BBIH
LGBT+ History Month and Women’s History Month take place in February and March respectively. You can use BBIH to research these areas as it contains over:
- 38,300 publications about the histories of women, with the February 2025 update containing 479 new publications
- 1,300 resources for LBGTQ+ and queer histories, with the February 2025 update containing 26 new publications
You can delve into these areas of research further by:
- Exploring the women’s history and LGBTQ+ history online reading lists created by the Bibliography’s editors and Brepols
- Reading Lucy McCormick’s piece for On History about how emotion, space, and gender were utilised in the mid-Victorian women’s suffrage movement
Get the most out of using BBIH
With the 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 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 660,000 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 UK’s Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and our publisher Brepols.
BBIH is a subscription service and is available remotely via university and research libraries worldwide.