News release

From the University Library

20 April 2007

18th Century British Parliamentary Papers now online

We are pleased to announce a vast new collection of British Official Publications has now been made available online for use by anybody within the UK academic community.
www.bopcris.ac.uk/18c

Dates of coverage: 1688-1834. Materials included: Bills, Acts, Debates, Journals and Papers of both the Lords and the Commons. For more detail on the content see
www.parl18c.soton.ac.uk/soton/digbib/biblio

This is the result of a JISC-funded project, led by the University of Southampton Library, in collaboration with Cambridge University Library and the British Library.

It provides approximately one million pages of text from some 1,400 volumes. The service was launched at the House Of Commons, and a PDF of the launch brochure is available.
www.bopcris.ac.uk/18c/18_Century_Papers_Brochure.pdf

It has always been difficult to locate sets of these older parliamentary materials, and even complete sets may have been in poor condition and difficult to access. The Hartley Library's own holdings of 18th Century official publications were not extensive, so this service provides, for Southampton users, not only an alternative way of accessing these
documents but also provides access to series we have never held in paper, e.g. the Lords papers and private acts.

This service complements the recently announced online access to Nineteenth Century House of Commons Papers, and the Hartley Library's excellent Ford Collection of British Official Publications. The news item on the 19th Century service is still available at:
www.soton.ac.uk/library/news/2007/010.shtml

For further information and advice, please contact Joy Caisley, the Academic Liaison Librarian for Law and Official Publications, email: jc5@soton.ac.uk