Faculty of Philosophy

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Research Resources in Cambridge

• Libraries
• Archives and repositories
• Theses
• Electronic resources
• Current awareness
• Reference Management tools

Libraries

Finding books and other printed material

The Casimir Lewy Library is the primary source of printed and electronic material needed for the study and teaching of philosophy and related subjects in Cambridge. Its holdings can be searched using the Newton catalogue and the 'Philosophy Library' quick limit. Alternatively, try the resource discovery platform, LibrarySearch.

The University Library as one of Britain’s five copyright libraries, holds every book published in Britain since the early eighteenth century, as well as extensive stocks from overseas (more than 7 million volumes). The Library catalogue (Newton) or LibrarySearch can be used to find books, journals and other printed material in any of the University of Cambridge's libraries.

You can also search the library collections in Cambridge on the move by using the new mobile interface. Use it to:

• Search library collections
• Find items on maps and floorplans
• Link out to full text versions

If a book is not available in one of Cambridge's libraries, try searching the COPAC catalogue of other University libraries in the UK; or Worldcat, which is a global catalogue of library holdings.

The University Library offers an Inter-Library Loan service which provides access to material not held within Cambridge University. A charge of £3.00 is made for Inter-Library Loan requests for members of the University. Alternatively, you can request that the Philosophy Library purchases a copy by completing the book suggestion form.

Other Departmental Libraries

You may find libraries in inter-related disciplines particularly useful for Philosophy. Including:

 

 

Archives and Repositories

DSpace@Cambridge is the institutional repository of the University of Cambridge. The repository was established in 2003 to facilitate the deposit of digital content of a scholarly or heritage nature, allowing academics and their departments at the University to share and preserve this content in a managed environment. A number of the University's theses are now available online.

Special collections

Archives within the University of Cambridge may be searched using JANUS. Two important philosophy archives are:

Wittgenstein archive (contact Wren Library, Trinity College)
Consists of manuscripts, typescripts and dictations on philosophical subjects 1914-49; correspondence 1912-51. 32 boxes. Listed and indexed.

Moore archive (contact Manuscripts room, University Library) The personal and philosophical papers of G.E. Moore.

The archives held in other UK Universities can be found using the Archives Hub. The catalogues of other manuscript collections can be searched from the National archive website.

Theses

Information about finding dissertations and theses is available from here.

The University Library : Manuscripts and Theses catalogue can be used to find theses and dissertations from the University of Cambridge.

The Philosophy Library holds a collection of successful MPhil Theses at the Issue Desk which may be consulted in the Library.

Electronic Resources

Finding Quality Web Resources

The eresources@cambridge webpage provides an interface for browsing useful eresources that are subscribed to by the University of Cambridge. A selection of the most useful electronic resources for Philosophy can be found here.

Finding Journal articles

Indexes and databases can be used to find citations, abstracts and/or full text materials on your topic. There are a number of databases which index journal articles for Philosophy and related subjects. You can search all of these databases to find articles on a topic, or by a specific author. Citation databases do not contain the full text of the articles – they just give you the necessary bibliographic details to enable you to go away and find the item. The most important resource in this area is the Philosopher's Index , which indexes over 650 journals, as well as some book chapters, book reviews and anthologies.
Once you have the bibliographic details, the best way to access Philosophy journals online is via the ejournals@cambridge search facility. This offers an A-Z list of titles and you can search by title, subject area, vendor, ISSN or citation. You can also browse Philosophy journals here.

Finding Newspaper articles

LexisNexis Butterworths (select 'news' tab)
UK national and local newspapers from January 1982 to current (varies by publication). Updated within about 4 days of publication.

See also Newspapers links on UL web page.

Finding Online Texts

Encyclopedia & Dictionaries

You will find an encyclopedia useful if you want a general overview, or background information on your subject. Some important reference works for philosophy are:

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A broad range of well-informed articles by acknowledged experts in the field. Guide (PDF). The database is continually updated and revised. Guide

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This database allows you to search for full-text entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The database is continually revised and updated.

Oxford Reference Online: Religion & Philosophy Includes The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Online and The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy Online. Quick guide

E-books

Search the Newton catalogue to find individual e-book titles using the 'Electronic resources and e-books' Quick limit. This currently excludes book titles on Oxford Scholarship Online. Click here for more information.

Pre-prints

Preprints are journal article which are made available online before (and sometimes after) they have been peer reviewed. Archives of these online papers are called ePrint repositories. Important ones include:

• CogPrints contains papers in cognitive science and related areas.
• Philsci Archive is a collection of preprints in the philosophy of science.
• Mathematics on the Web Preprint Server Covers many topics in logic and the foundations of mathematics
• OpenDOAR offers access to repositories worldwide and provides a trial search service for the full text of material held in open access repositories listed in the Directory.

Biography

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Contains over 50,000 biographies and 10,000 images of men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past, from the 4th century BC to the year 2000.

Professional organisations

The websites of professional organisations for philosophy can be a good starting point for research. Some key ones include:

• British Philosophical Association (BPA) Promotes the study of philosophy, and provides support for philosophy teaching and research.
• Royal Institute of Philosophy which organises lecture series and publishes the journal Philosophy.
• British Undergraduate Philosophy Society (BUPS) - exists to provide a forum for philosophical activity for students. The Society publishes a journal, and runs frequent conferences.

Research centres will often use the Internet to disseminate their work. For example:
• Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics has a website that offers online papers, plus audio and video resources.  

Current Awareness

It saves loads of time if you set up RSS feeds or email alerts so that information on your research interests is is delivered directly to you. More information on using current awareness tools can be found here. Two of the most important alerting services are:

ZETOC
The British Library's Electronic Table of Contents database (ETOC). You can search the contents pages of approximately 20,000 current journals and 16,000 conference proceedings, covering every imaginable subject in science, technology, medicine, engineering, business, law, finance and the humanities. A list of journal titles covered by the database is available. The database only covers 1993 - present; it is updated daily. You can also set up ZETOC alerts to e-mail you contents pages from selected journals.

TicTOCs
A new service where you “tick” selected tables of contents (TOCs) of interest, from an easy to use online directory of thousands of feeds. It's free and provides access to the most recent tables of contents of over 11,000 scholarly journals from more than 400 publishers.

Reference Management Tools

Many software tools are available to help students and researchers collate and manage citations and references. These include:

Endnote

EndNote is reference management software, available from the PWF network, that enables you to store and manage your references. It will then create bibliographies from these references automatically. Further information is available from the Computer Service website.

Mendeley

Mendeley allows you to create and store your own personal library, or import an existing set of references and material. It is available as a free download.

Zotero

Zotero is a citation collection and managment suite for the Firefox web browser. It is available as a free download.

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LibrarySearch

Search for books and online material in the Philosophy Library or other Cambridge libraries using the new LibrarySearch below:

Search for:

Philosophy Library only   ebooks   All libraries

New Library Research Guide for Philosophy (PDF)
A guide to finding the print and electronic resources needed for research in Cambridge libraries.

RSS Feeds
Keep up to date with new Philosophy articles and books by subscribing to RSS feeds.

New and revised entries in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Quick links

 

Library catalogue (Newton)

Cambridge University Library

Department and College Libraries

eresources@cambridge

ejournals@cambridge

JANUS

DSpace

COPAC

Inter-library loans

 

 

Off-campus access

To access subscription library resources from off-campus, you must use a Raven login
Select the Raven or Shibboleth login option and find University of Cambridge from the drop down list. This should then redirect you to a Raven login screen, Once you have entered your Raven username and password you can gain access.

 

 

 

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