Sharon W. Propas - Victorian Studies: A Research Guide

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:
THE VICTORIAN WORLD

Volume 39

VICTORIAN STUDIES: A RESEARCH GUIDE

VICTORIAN STUDIES: A RESEARCH GUIDE

2nd Edition

SHARON W. PROPAS

First published in 2006 by Rivendale Press Ltd.

This edition first published in 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

2006 Sharon Propas

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-66565-1 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-315-61965-1 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-65935-3 (Volume 39) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-65933-9 (Volume 39) (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62027-5 (Volume 39) (ebk)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

VICTORIAN STUDIES: A RESEARCH GUIDE

2ND EDITION

SHARON W. PROPAS

RIVENDALE PRESS
2006

Published by Rivendale Press Ltd.
P O Box 85
High Wycombe
HP14 4WZ
Website: http://www.rivendalepress.com

Copyright Sharon Propas, 2006

The right of Sharon Propas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 1 904201 05 9

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

I would like to thank the many members of VICTORIA discussion list for their responses to my queries and for their postings on new resources. This list is an invaluable resource for both information and encouragement. My thanks go especially to Patrick Leary, both for his creation and maintenance of the list and for his kind responses to my postings.

I would also like to thank Interlibrary Services at Stanford University. They have performed miracles for me, as they do for all seeking their services.

The first edition of this guide to research sources for Victorian studies was published in 1992, just as electronic resources were becoming major tools for scholars. Since then, the internet has changed the way in which research materials, especially indexes and other finding guides, are presented and used. The present volume attempts to cover this change, while including the paper materials that have been important to research for the many years before electronic resources appeared.

Both paper and electronic resources have burgeoned during this period, so this guide includes substantially more titles than did the first edition. Most of the resources from the first guide are included in this edition, suitably updated. I have removed those electronic services that no longer exist. Paper resources remain, with new editions noted. However, I have deleted titles meant to give current information and that are now out of print. An example of this would be The National Register of Microform Masters. It ceased publication in 1983 and is not a classic of Victorian reference, so I have removed it. Information on electronic versions of classic sources have been added to the original entry on the paper resource. New inclusions, some published since the first guide and some that I missed, are integrated into the older content. Some reorganization of the content was necessary to accommodate new areas; section names and their contents may have shifted slightly.

In the first edition of this bibliography, microforms and databases were treated in separate sections. Many resources that originally appeared in microform are now being brought out as full-text databases. Often the problems with accessing and using microforms are solved by presenting them in electronic format. However, these resources tend to be expensive, and many libraries that already purchased the microform are now presented with the need to buy the database. Some are unable to afford this extra expense and have opted to have only the microform in the collection, especially if the resource has not been heavily used. For this reason, I have retained the information on microform sets, even when they have been superseded by an electronic resource. I have also integrated microform and electronic resources in the appropriate subject sections of the bibliography rather than in separate sections. If the collection is based upon a print bibliography, I have placed the entry on the collection after that of the bibliography.

This bibliography is a selective list of the many titles that may prove useful to the researcher in Victorian Studies. As before, I have excluded certain categories of materials;

Plot summaries;

Reference sources and web sites on individuals;

Reference sources and web sites on single musical instruments;

Reference sources and web sites on single literary titles;

Indexes to single periodical titles (with the exception of The Times of London);

Web sites hosting individual journal titles;

Narrative historical summaries;

Catalogs to museum exhibitions;

Web sites for individual societies;

Catalogs to collections amassed by individuals.

I have also dropped the first section of the guide, which covered research methods. Many fine books on this subject exist, treating the subject more thoroughly and expertly than I have space for in this guide. In the place of this section, I have sought out more research guides, many of them specific to their subject, for inclusion. I suggest that the inexperienced researcher pay particular attention to the Research Guide section in each part of this bibliography. The techniques suggested in these guides can ease the difficulties of research and aid in the complete coverage of a subject.

A note on finding electronic resources. Contrary to the popular perception, not everything is free on the internet. Many of the resources listed here are available only at a sizable subscription charge. The first place to check for these sources is an academic library. Even large research libraries find their resources strained to cover the many available electronic resources, however. Not all libraries will have all of these titles. Further, if you are not a member of the community served by an institution, licensing may limit access to certain databases.

Another barrier to access to electronic resources is the frequency with which URLs change. I have included URLs, when they are not local to the libraries I have used. In this case, I have either omitted the URL or given the home page for the company providing the resource. Use a good search engine or the finding aids provided by your library to see if these resources are available to you. Another useful resource for finding materials whose URL has changed is the Way BackMachine, http://www.waybackmachine.org/, a Web archive listing old URLs. This site, however, lists only sites with simple html, not elaborate frames or java.