Mike Macdonald's Transport History Pages

e-mail: macdonald.mike@planetinternet.be

A number of libraries, archives and museums in the United Kingdom hold collections of maritime periodicals. These may comprise large holdings of specialist maritime titles like Fairplay International Shipping Weekly, Motor Ship, Shipbuilding & Shipping Record, or Sea Breezes, or they may be back runs (often on microfilm) of local newspapers with an important maritime content (e.g., the Dundee Evening Telegraph or The Glasgow Herald). To see a list of libraries' periodicals' holdings, click Union List.

Some of these periodicals may have been indexed by their publishers, or local history librarians may have compiled card or computer subject indexes of topics of interest to their local readership. These subject indexes are a valuable aid to shipping and shipbuilding research. Among libraries which have subject indexes of local topics are Dundee City Libraries, the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, the Merseyside Maritime Museum, South Tyneside Central Library and Southampton City Libraries. To see a list of libraries, click Maritime Libraries.

Librarians within the Maritime Information Association have expressed interest in some kind of inter-library co-operation on the indexing of maritime periodicals. Information/inquiry exchange might follow, with some kind of unified, central subject index a possible long-term goal. Libraries which participated in such a network would be able to offer their readers access to far greater resources than those available to them locally.

To see extracts from a simple computer Subject Index of maritime periodicals

½ Index extract "Opalia" (1963)- ½

Back to Top ½ Home ½ Ship pages ½ Author

Ó Mike Macdonald, 2000. Site last modified: 10 October 2000