Alumni Oxonienses

The Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714, is now complete on British History Online.

This series lists all known members of Oxford University from 1500 up to 1714. A second series, covering 1715 to 1886, was compiled by the same editor, Joseph Foster: we very much hope to add the later series to British History Online in the future.

Foster painstakingly worked through the University Archives, cross-referencing with other reference sources of the time, such as registers of the Inns of Court, ecclesiastical and political records. The entries vary in length; for example, here is that of Simon Laude:

Laude, Simon, s. Lewis, of Tamerton, Devon, sacerd. Exeter Coll, matric. 18 Feb., 1626-7, aged 16; B.A. 26 Jan., 1629-30.

Whereas the next entry, for Archbishop William Laud, is quite a bit longer. For many obscure people, such as Simon Laude, this is probably the only printed biographical summary of their lives, and so the Alumni is a particularly valuable resource.

We have tried to make it even more useful for users of British History Online by splitting the text into two columns, with names in the left-hand column to make them easier to scan; we have also put occurences of Oxford and Cambridge college names in bold.

New resources for architectural history

We're just about to begin work on a new digitisation project: of the inventory volumes of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. The definition of a monument is widely drawn, to include historic buildings and structures of all kinds, and the volumes give accounts of their history and structure, based on a detailed measured survey. Before 1946 only monuments created before 1718 were recorded, but after 1946 coverage was extended to record all 18th and 19th century sites. The project is generously funded by English Heritage, of which the Royal Commission became part.

The 43 RCHME volumes form the counterpart to the publications of the slightly older Survey of London, which was taken over by the RCHME in 1986, the volumes of which are already on BHO. Together they offer a record of England’s monuments unrivalled in range, coverage, detail and accuracy. They also form a counterpart to the architectural content of the Victoria County History, with which the Commission’s history is intertwined. Architects, such as (Sir) Charles Peers, contributed surveys to the volumes of the VCH published before 1908 and went on to contribute surveys to both series for a short time. But the founding of the RCHME soon led to the VCH abandoning detailed survey and record, and to the two series being seen as complementary, with the VCH concentrating on using built evidence for tracing the history of settlement. Cross-searching all three series (a task often undertaken using the books) will be immeasurably enhanced by having all the volumes of the VCH, Survey of London and RCHME available online.

We expect the first volumes to appear this summer, with the set being complete by August 2013.

An index of sustainability: ISURV

This project will investigate the creation of a sustainability index which will be the product of three variables: unique visitors, their return rate and the number of page requests per visit.

• Unique visitors: this is related to a number of factors, such as the uniqueness of the content, the longevity of the site, how it is promoted, and access fees.
• Rate of repeat visits: a measure of how suited the site is to our visitors' needs, aka loyalty
• Page views per Visit ('stickiness')

Giving: Index of Sustainability = U × R × V

Take the example of a cafe: it can increase its business by getting more people through the doors (U), increasing the amount its customers spend each time (V), and improving the frequency with which each customer comes back (R).

In terms of resource allocation, the cafe has to decide which of these factors it could invest money in to bring it the biggest benefit; advertising to bring more people in (U), changing the product range or ambiance to increase money spent per visit (V), or the more diffuse aspects of loyalty (R) which could include more complicated activities such as taste tests.

This project will mainly focus on improving user experience (V), and refining the effectiveness of ISURV together with a set of orthogonal indicators which can be used to compare the functional performance of sub-site areas, a whole site, or even between separate sites. It will amend discrete areas of content, leaving whole other areas untouched to allow contrast, and communicate its results in a non-specialised language.

Our first set of figures will be published in April 2012.

BHO wins new funding

We are pleased to announce that British History Online has been awarded funding by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) under strand B, 'Enhancing the Sustainability of Digital Collections', of the 16/11 Digital Infrastructure call.

Entitled 'Developing a sustainability index using British History Online (ISURV)', this project will investigate the creation of a sustainability index which can be used to compare the performance of functionality of sub-site areas, a whole site, or even between separate sites.

Its core objectives include:

• giving senior managers a richer set of performance indicators and attempting to better communicate the value of digital products upwards
• use the results to promote service excellence across the field of digital humanities
• large scale user engagement
• encourage (challenge?) historians to adopt new tools and techniques for navigating and locating content
• attempt to communicate to both audiences, i.e. senior managers and users, to create a positive environment for the product

You can keep up to date with the project, and learn how to take part, by following this blog.

Mapping the medieval countryside

We're delighted at BHO to be playing a part in this new AHRC-funded project, led by the Department of Digital Humanities (DDH) at King's College London. Our involvement is the digitisation for BHO of 29 volumes of the Calendars of Inquisitions Post Mortem, the single most important source for the study of landed society in later medieval England. Those volumes will be available along the two early volumes for Henry III and  Edward I that are already live. The forthcoming volumes cover the periods 1236-1447 and 1485-1509.
In addition to the volumes being accessible through BHO, the team at King's, working with colleagues at the University of Winchester, will create an additional database of the material for 1399-1447, allowing map-based and other statistical analyses of the data. Further details are available from the DDH site.

London Sheriffs' Court Roll

An edition of the court roll for 1320 is now live. Edited by Dr Matthew F. Stevens, it gives a complete edition and index of London's only surviving such roll for the medieval period, for July-Sept 1320. It was produced as part of the Centre for Metropolitan History ESRC-funded project 'London women and the economy before and after the black death' (2009-10). More information on the project is available on the project site; see also an introduction to the court roll itself.

Citations, week 50 2011

Thurloe and the Secret Room
http://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/thurloe-and-the-secret-room/
The British Postal Museum & Archive (2011-12-05)
John Thurloe, whose state papers are available on BHO, was the first postmaster general and is reported to have opened and read all of the post every night.

Eleanor Mosley and Other Milliners in the City of London Companies 1700–1750
http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/71/1/147.short
Hist Workshop J (2011) 71 (2011-03-20)
Many of BHO's London resources provide background for this article, which points to the significance of marriage as a means of acquiring Company membership for both women and men.

The Possible Identity of Ben Jonson's 'Love Lady'
http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/2/283.short
Notes and Queries (2011) 58 (2011-04-15)
The author draws extensively on various BHO sources to piece together the identity of Ben Jonson's 'Love Lady'.

The Thrift
http://auldfromreekie.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/the-thrift/
The Auld from Reekie (2011-12-04)
A dilapidated and remote cottage on the Willey Estate in Shropshire was the centre of family life for this blogger.

Tuesday 10 November 1668 http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1668/11/10/
The Diary of Samuel Pepys (2011-11-10)
The adjournment of Parliament (from the Journal of the House of Lords) goes unnoticed as Samuel Pepys gives an intimate view of the crisis in his marriage.