AFIHR and IHR News

• 80th Anglo-American Conference 2011: Health in History
  • 29 June 2011 - 1 July 2011 The 80th Anglo-American Conference of Historians will feature papers and panels across all periods and areas of the history of medicine. Topics which will be particularly welcome are medical practitioners and spaces, mental health, disability, old and new technologies of medicine, alternative medicine, public health, nutrition, ageing, addiction, death and disease. Plenary lecturers include David Arnold, Joanna Bourke, Samuel Cohn, Mary Fissell, Monica Green, Helen King and Paul Starr. The conference will feature a postgraduate panel hosted by History Lab. Postgraduate students will be eligible for bursaries - for further information, please contact the Events Office at IHR.Events@sas.ac.uk. Registrations will open on 1st March 2011, with early bird discounts available. Call for papers deadline: 1 December 2010 Individual papers and/or panels of papers for the 2011 Anglo-American conference are invited from scholars at all levels from the UK and overseas. Proposals should be sent to IHR.Events@sas.ac.uk and should be submitted no later than 1st December 2010. Successful applicants will be notified after 15th December 2010.
    
    
• Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH)
  • With effect from 1 January 2010, the Bibliography will be renamed Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH), and will be run by a partnership comprising the Royal Historical Society (RHS), the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and the international academic publisher, Brepols publishers. A Press Release and a set of FAQs concerning the change are posted on the websites of both the RHS and the IHR.
  • Though free at the point of use, the production of the Bibliography entails considerable costs. The value added of the Bibliography depends on high quality indexing which cannot be automated, and the project employs two members of staff. Since 1998, these costs have largely been borne by four generous Project Grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Board/Council (AHRB/C), which allowed the Bibliography to inaugurate its current on-line status in 2002. It should be emphasized that prior to this stream of funding the Bibliography was only available by purchasing a CD-ROM and the hard copy print volumes which added recent publications. The period of free access reflected the ready availability of money for new electronic resources in the first part of this decade. But as projects multiplied, research councils became more concerned about their sustainability.
  • For several years now, we have been in high-level consultations with the AHRC about continuation funding. At every point in these consultations, we made the point about the problems faced by resources such as ours whose utility depends on their being kept up to date, with the additional implications for costs that this entails. However, our discussions with the AHRC left us in no doubt that a further grant was unlikely when our current funding ceases in December 2009. The Council supports individual projects rather than the long-term continuation of research infrastructural resources, and stresses innovation rather than maintenance of existing projects.
  • In this context, the RHS and IHR began working closely together to devise a sustainable future for a resource which we believe is highly esteemed across the globe. We undertook extensive consultation with charitable foundations and with major universities and university libraries. Those consultations were informed by advice from colleagues from The National Archives, from Board-members of NACBS and from one of Britain’s premier university presses. Our quest for alternative charitable support on even a short-term basis was fruitless. All potential major grants had the character of seedcorn money to get a project off the ground, and that they too (like the AHRC) expected a model built around sustainability....
  • IHR and RHS are delighted to have entered into new joint partnership in pursuit of this option with a publisher with an excellent record in and commitment to our field: for almost 15 years, Brepols has operated the International Medieval Bibliography. We also believe that Brepols’s experience in this sector will improve the (already very high) quality of the service that the Bibliography provides. We are particularly pleased that Brepols is whole-heartedly committing to this venture at a very difficult time in the business cycle and with university library budgets under strain. The new partnership promises to allow the Bibliography to adapt swiftly to changing technology in this area.
  • We wish to stress that the new arrangements involve genuine partnership. Editorial continuity between BBIH and the RHS Bibliography is very substantial. Our immensely-respected and long- serving RHS Literary Director, Dr Ian Archer, will continue in the role of the BBIH’s Academic Editor. The IHR’s Dr Jane Winters, a highly-experienced and key member of the existing team, will take on the enhanced role of Publishing/Technical Editor. There is continuity too in the paid staff on the project at the IHR. In addition, the new arrangements will involve increased financial input from both the IHR and the RHS, who are joint partners in the enterprise.
  • Colleagues would like more information about subscription prices. 
    • Brepols has a tradition of reasonable subscription prices, which has also been an element in our decision. Subscriptions prices will take into account to a certain degree the budgetary difficulties libraries face at the moment. A pricing schedule has been worked out for the UK that recognizes the funding from which the BBIH has benefited in the past and that takes into account the size of interested institutions. 
    • We encourage scholars worldwide to pursue with Brepols through their librarians the idea of involvement in consortia deals. If you want to know what a subscription to BBIH will cost for your institution we advise to contact Brepols directly.
    • We also have negotiated with Brepols the introduction in 2012 of a preferential rate for Fellows of the RHS and Friends of the IHR. We would also point out that access to BBIH will be free onsite at the IHR from 1 January 2010.
  • Miles Taylor, Director, Institute of Historical Research
  • Colin Jones, President, Royal Historical Society
    
    
• Anglo-American conference of historians 2009: Cities
  • Institute of Historical Research, 2 - 3 July 2009, The Swiss Re Tower, St Mary Axe, London
  • As so many of us mass together in cities, are we at a turning point in our identity as humans? Or does past experience of cities offer some clues for the future, whether one of hope or of disaster?
  • If you wish to propose a session (usually consisting of three 20-minute papers and 30 minutes of discussion) or a paper to be included in a session arranged by the organisers, you should provide titles and short synopses for papers, and statements of academic affiliation and of professional status for speakers. For sessions, please provide a title and nominate a chair as well as speakers.
  • The CFP is now closed, but the conference details are available here.
  
  
• Call for papers: 1649 and the execution of King Charles
  • 30 January 1649 is one of the key dates in the history of British democracy but it is commemorated nowhere in Britain. It was the day when King Charles 1st was beheaded and the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell, the foundation of modern Parliamentary democracy, came into effective being. This conference will look at the liberties and democratic practices ushered in by 1649 and at those who wanted to take them further.
  • The conference will be held at the Institute of Historical Research Senate House, Malet Street London WC1 Saturday 7 February 2009.
  • Papers will be considered on any aspect of the year and its legacy, but suggested topics that might be addressed include:
    • The origins of the decision to execute: in parliamentary discussions or outside parliament
    • The relationship between execution and the civil war
    • Discussion of whether the decision to execute King Charles was justified
    • The connection between tyrannicide and the republican political movements or theory of the 1640s
    • The demands of the New Model Army, its relationship to parliament, and its part in the decision to execute
    • The discussion of tyrannicide in Royalists or Parliamentarian literature after 1649
    • The impact of the execution on movements such as the Levellers or Diggers, or on the religious movements of the time; their discussion of the execution, or its impact on their fortunes after 1649
  • Deadline for abstracts of papers (up to 1,000 words) is 31 November 2008 . For further information download the call for papers document (PDF, 43KB), email the organisers - conference2008 (at)londonsocialisthistorians.org, or find out more about the London Socialist Historians Group.
    
    
• American Friends of the Institute Write Their Own History!
  • Sears McGee discusses the founding of the AFIHR and shares some reminiscences of life at the IHR in the 1960s in "Our Friends in the States," published in Timeline Issue 2 (Autumn/Winter 2007)
    • He notes also "The American Friends of the Institute of Historical Research was founded in 1989, and its prime mover was Jacob M. Price of the University of Michigan, the doyen of Atlantic historians."
      
      
• Annual Board meeting of the American Friends of the IHR
  • Our next meeting will be held in Louisville, KY on November 6-8, 2009.
    
    
• American Friends Refurbish the Periodicals Room of the IHR
  • Also in Timeline Issue 2 (Autumn/Winter 2007) is an article on the refurbishment of the IHR Common and Periodicals Rooms. "AFIHR paid the construction costs of a Periodicals Room (for current numbers) which is adjacent to the Common Room, and there is a plaque to that effect near its door."
    
    
• IHR Mellon Fellowships for Doctoral Research in the Humanities
  • These are administered by the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London and are funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The fellowships are intended to help students registered as doctoral candidates at a North American university to
    • work in original source materials in the humanities in the United Kingdom .
    • help doctoral candidates in the humanities to deepen their ability to develop knowledge from original sources.
    • provide insight from the viewpoint of doctoral candidates into how scholarly resources can be developed most helpfully in the future.
  • There are two types of fellowship; Pre-Dissertation and Dissertation. The Pre-Dissertation fellowship is offered for a maximum of 2 months and is intended to help candidates to draw up and revise a dissertation proposal. Candidates must have completed their coursework and examinations prior to the start of the fellowship.
  • The Dissertation fellowship is offered to candidates already working on their dissertation and who need to spend time in the United Kingdom to carry out archival research. These fellowships will last for a year and will run concurrently with the academic year (i.e. 1st October, 2007 to 30th September 2008).
  • Further details

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  • Background information on the Institute of Historical Research Library
    • The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) was founded by Professor A. F. Pollard in 1521, to
    • promote the study of history and an appreciation of the importance of the past;
    • provide institutional support and individual leadership for the broad historical community;
    • offer a wide range of facilities and services which assist the researching, teaching, writing and dissemination of history;
    • further high quality scholarship on particular aspects of the past by means of collective research projects; and
    • nurture a hospitable and welcoming environment where historians at all stages of their careers and from all parts of the world may meet, formally and informally
    • It was described by G. M. Trevelyan as a `world centre for historical research', and that phrase did not--and does not--mislead. As it has evolved and developed during the 20thcentury, the IHR now comprises six sections:
      • a library of 164,000 volumes, which is the best open access collection of primary sources and research tools for working historians anywhere in the English speaking world;
      • facilities and services including an unrivalled range of seminars, meetings, conferences and public lectures, which draw audiences from London to Japan, and from academics to the wider public, and a series of Fellowships and Professorships that allow academics at different stages of their careers to base their studies at the IHR;
      • an important, pioneering and expanding publications program, which embraces the electronic and print media, including:
        • British History Online
        • History in Focus
        • The History Lab, a hub for postgraduate students
        • Royal Historical Society Bibliography
        • the Victoria County History, the best account of the history of local communities for the whole of England
        • the Centre for Metropolitan History, devoted to the study of the great cities of the world, especially London, from earliest times to present day
        • the Centre for Contemporary British History

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  last modified on November 10, 2010