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We are pleased to announce that Cambridge University users now have access to National Theatre Collection 4, which offers a dynamic selection of six performances to support study and research –

The Importance of Being Earnest

Blues For an Alabama Sky

The Boy with Two Hearts

Ballet Shoes

Kin

Nye

Spanning 19th-century British classics and bold contemporary works from the U.S. and Wales, these productions explore powerful themes such as politics, family, immigration, and identity. Watch plays featuring Sharon D. Clarke, Ncuti Gatwa, Michael Sheen, Hugh Skinner, Giles Terera, Samira Wiley and many more.

Each production is accompanied by learning resources and exclusive behind-the-scenes content to help you explore literary themes, staging choices and much more.

You can access all four National Theatre collections via the Databases A-Z.

Cambridge University members now have trial access to the Media Korean Studies (MKS) database and e-book platform.

This trial is active now and ends 31 December 2025.

If you have any feedback or questions, please send it to korean@lib.cam.ac.uk

The MKS database is an integrated online database dedicated to Korean studies. It offers comprehensive access to classical literature, historical documents, regional and cultural records, and academic research materials. 

The database covers multiple sub-collections, including collections of Korean classical anthologies from Unified Silla to modern times; the history of Koryo; Korean geography, customs, and folklore materials; Manchurian-Mongolian geography, customs, and history; and materials on Korea-Japan relations, compiled from historical data and sources.

The database includes original-text images, searchable transcriptions, and some translated works, making primary sources more accessible to both specialists and non-experts. 

MKS eBook is a specialised academic e-book platform integrated with the MKS database. To use MKS ebook, you must register for an individual membership and log in within the University’s IP range to confirm your institutional membership. You can browse and loan ebooks during the trial.

We are pleased to announce that Cambridge University users now have access to the Indian Political Intelligence Files, 1912-1950 which provides access to primary source material including unique newspapers and includes access to most of the newspapers in the British Newspaper Archive.

Access is available on and off campus to member of the University of Cambridge and on campus to researchers at the University Library via the links in iDiscover and the Databases A-Z.

Contents

The files of IPI contain a mass of previously unavailable material on the monitoring of organizations and individuals considered a threat to British India. They include surveillance reports and intercepts from MI.5, MI.6 and Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, and a large number of intelligence summaries and position papers. Although the main thrust is anti-communist, exponents of the various nationalist movements were also monitored.

IPI kept files on most of the period’s best known activists and political figures – including Gandhi, as well as Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru and V.J. Patel. Their movements were recorded, their correspondence read and their publications combed through for allegedly subversive statements. In addition, there are more than eighty separate files on Indian censorship.

Characteristics

The IPI files serve as essential source material for the study of revolutionary movements in pre-independence India – and the support such movements received from Britain, Europe, the USSR and North America. They also shed new light on the way in which these movements were perceived and evaluated in London.
This archive contains previously classified data on political activists and various “subversive” movements.
The files expose in great detail the operations of a secret intelligence service, documenting the main concerns of the British in the last half century of the Raj.
Provenance

After the abolition of the India Office, the files were transferred to secure custody at the India Office Records which post-1947 was successively under the British Government’s Commonwealth Relations Office, Commonwealth Office, and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 1982, when the India Office Records were administratively transferred to the British Library, the files were recalled by the FCO. They were released into the public domain, after vetting by the FCO’s Sensitivity Review Unit, and returned to the British Library’s Oriental and India Office Collections in 1998.

Language

Texts are primarily in English, but some items are in Urdu or Hindi.

Content provided by: THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Photo by Abhinav Tripathi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/columns-in-traditional-building-in-delhi-15774367/

Cambridge University members now have trial access to J-DAC Gyosei kaikaku オンライン版: 行政改革：臨調と行革審

Trial access is active until 3 December 2025.

Please tell us what you think about this resource using our feedback form.

J-DAC Gyosei kaikaku オンライン版: 行政改革：臨調と行革審 (Administrative Reform of Japan: Rincho and Gyokakushin Online) – this database traces the footsteps of postwar administrative and fiscal reforms based on the basic principles of “from the public to the private sector” and “from the national government to the local governments,” using documents from the second and third sessions of the Rincho and the first session of the Administrative Reform Commission. More detailed information about this database is available here.

We are pleased to announce that Cambridge University users now have access to the Social History Archive – British Newspaper Archive, which provides access to primary source material including unique newspapers and includes access to most of the newspapers in the British Newspaper Archive.

Access is available on and off campus via this link.

The Social History Archive – British Newspaper Archive features curated collections of millions of digitised newspaper pages from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Created in partnership with the British Library and leading publishers, these series (listed below) offer unique insights into the history of Britain, Ireland, and the former Empire as told through the press.

Illustrated Newspapers, 1842-2009

Irish Newspapers I, 1708-1905

Irish Newspapers II, 1900-2009

Northern English Newspapers I, 1711-1905

Northern English Newspapers II, 1900-1945

Northern English Newspapers III, 1940-2003

Scottish Newspapers I, 1699-1905

Scottish Newspapers II, 1900-2022

Voices of Empire: Newspapers from British Colonial Territories, 1771-1962

Welsh Newspapers, 1827-1963

You can access this archive via the Databases A-Z or use the library catalogue iDiscover to search for individual titles within the collection.

Cotton Factory Times, Manchester newspaper aimed at workers at cotton factories in Lancashire and Cheshire. 

We are pleased to announce a new trial for Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers Part 1 and Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers Part 2

The trial access is active now 1 October and runs until  30 November 2025.

Part 1

The Organizational Records and Personal Papers bring a new perspective to the Black Freedom Struggle in the United States of America via the records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle. The organizations are the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the National Association of Colored women’s Clubs. Papers of civil rights leaders are those A. Philip Randolph; Bayard Rustin, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Claude A. Barnett.

Part 2

This module is highlighted by the records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, and the Robert F. Williams Papers. SNCC, formed by student activists in 1960 after the explosion of the sit-in movement, was one of the three most important civil rights organizations of the 1960s, alongside SCLC and NAACP. Rounding out this module are the papers of Chicago Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the Chicago chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, and records on Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Please send us your feedback using the online form.

Photo by Kelly : https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-protesting-on-street-4552840/

We are pleased to announce a new trial for Pragda STREAM.

The trial access is active now 1 October and runs until 13 November 2025.

Please send us your feedback using this online form. Thank you.

Pragda STREAM provides access currently to 552 Latin American, Spanish, and Latinx documentaries and feature films, all in their original language with English captions or subtitles. Most of the 552 films are exclusive to Pragda, and available 24/7 via Pragda’s streaming platform.

With more than 30 countries and 50 subjects represented, this resource can facilitate research across a range of disciplines. The platform focuses on diverse topics, including films about political and environmental causes, the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Latin America, stories of migration and exile, and narratives highlighting the perspectives of women and the LGBTQ+ community. 

Access is available on and off campus via this link.

From this link you will be logged in automatically as a generic “University of Cambridge User” and have access to all of the trial content (552 titles). You can see licensed content by clicking on the My Movies link at the top of most pages and then on the title, or by searching for content and then clicking on “Watch now” in the search results.

Guest post by George Cronin, Academic Services Librarian at the Haddon Library

We are thrilled to be able to continue providing the latest archaeological research through the recent purchase of the 2025 catalogue of British Archaeological Reports (BAR).

BAR are highly sought after by students and researchers alike as they bring together primary data from excavation reports, surveys and even published PhD theses – all essential and specialist information that can often be hard to find elsewhere. 

Despite their name, BAR cover everything from prehistory to modern heritage, across the UK and internationally. Dr Susanne Hakenbeck (Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology) describes BAR as an “an absolute goldmine for archaeological research” and at the Haddon Library for Archaeology and Anthropology, we concur!  

Having these reports available online also means that they can be accessed from wherever our archaeological community find themselves, whether at their desk in Cambridge or out on a dig far away from the University.

You can access BAR via the Databases A-Z or use the library catalogue iDiscover to search for individual titles within the collection.