Gender Studies

Printed collections

Material related to Gender Studies can be found across several of the Library’s collections, mainly in Sociology and English, but there is also relevant material in the Government Publications, History, Latin American, Politics, Sociology and United States Studies collections.

It is important that you use the catalogue, as many early works are held in Special Collections or other closed stacks, and so will not be apparent from shelf browsing. Also, as relevant materials are distributed in different collections, browsing the shelves will not reveal all of the Library's holdings. If you cannot find a book published before 1980, please check the online card catalogue, which is accessible from the main catalogue menu.

Collection strengths include:

Women's history
Masculinity
Sexuality
A range of modern periodicals - from specialist titles such as Journal of Homosexuality to general ones eg Journal of Gender Studies
Online access to major bibliographic databases

Special Collections

The Goldsmiths’ Library of Economic Literature contains original editions of books, pamphlets and periodicals primarily on economic and social matters published from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The database Making of the Modern World (MoMW) is based on this collection and contains the full text of many publications.

Other Special Collections of note include the:

Harry Price Library - books on all aspects of witchcraft and the occult, magic and fraud
Prothero Collection – pamphlets and bound volumes relating primarily to the social, economic and political history of England - the collection includes material on suffrage

The Library also holds manuscript material on relevant topics including slavery. Manuscripts can be located on Senate House Library’s Archive & Manuscript Catalogue: http://archives.ulrls.lon.ac.uk, or via AIM25 (Archives in London and the M25 Area): www.aim25.ac.uk.

Periodicals and newspapers

The Library holds:

General and literary periodicals as well as those on specific subjects
A variety of reference works to assist in discovering information about periodicals

Articles in periodicals – can be traced through indexes to periodical titles (see the catalogue) and online versions of some periodicals or databases, eg Periodicals Archive Online and JSTOR

Newspapers - eg Times Digital Archive 1785-1985 and Proquest Newspapers. More information about access to newspapers can be found at: www.shl.lon.ac.uk/resources/news.shtml

Parliament, government and legal records

The Library holds an almost complete set of British Parliamentary publications, however these do not appear on the online catalogue. There are some gaps in the sequence, so readers travelling especially to consult specific material are advised to contact the Information Centre in advance to check that the material is available.

The Parliamentary Publications collection includes many relevant titles. For more information please see: www.shl.lon.ac.uk/subjects/governmentpublications/index.shtml

Please do not hesitate to ask staff for assistance with finding Parliamentary Publications.

Reference works

Reference works are shelved both with the collections and in the Reference Collection 4th floor Periodicals Room. Some items of interest in this subject area include:

Resource: Location

A companion to gender history: 3 QVZ Com

International encyclopedia of the social sciences: 303 [International]

Palgrave Macmillan dictionary of women's biography: 920.01 [Palgrave]

Classmarks for Gender Studies

Adolescent boys: QVU

Adolescent girls: QVP

Fatherhood: KCWF

Feminists included in: QWE

Gender: QVZ

Lesbian and Gay Studies: KCUH

Masculinity: QWZ

Men: QWZ

Motherhood: QWM

Trans-sexuality: KCUI

Transvestism: KCUK

Women: QWE

Women - UK: QWEe

Women and Technology: KDTU

Women and Work: QWS

Women - criminals: QOYW

Note - items with these classmarks appear on the shelves in the social sciences collections, and also in the area studies collections for Latin America and the United States, eg books on sexuality in Latin America will be found in the Latin American collection.

There are no specific classmarks for gender in literature, so you will need to use the catalogue to find specific titles, or use the ‘Subject headings’ search option in the catalogue to search for terms such as ‘English literature - Women authors’.