Expressions of Authenticity: Music for Worship

This chapter examines the shifting conceptions of authenticity with regard to music for worship in British churches since 1945. This version reflects exactly that published, but is not typeset. The published volume in which it appeared may be purchased at www.scm-canterburypress.co.u

The Impact and Embedding of an Established Resource: British History Online as a Case Study: final report

The final report of this JISC-funded project, April 2011

Book review: society and the internet: how networks of information and communication are changing our lives, edited by Mark Graham and William H. Dutton

This book brings together research that addresses some of the most significant cultural, economic, and political roles of the Internet. Peter Webster finds that individually, the essays in this volume are uniformly strong: lucid, cogent and concise, and accompanied with useful lists of further reading. As a whole, the volume prompts fertile reflections on the method and purpose of the new discipline of Internet Studies

Book review: the new Elizabethan age. Culture, society and national identity after World War II edited by Irene Morra and Rob Gossedge

In The New Elizabethan Age: Culture, Society and National Identity after World War II, editors Irene Morra and Rob Gossedge bring together contributors to explore the emergence of a cultural ‘new Elizabethanism’ following the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the 1950s, which drew upon the historical example of the Elizabethans to express and channel a sense of dynamic modernity without relinquishing reverence for the past. While finding the central thesis of a ‘new Elizabethanism’ somewhat overdetermined across the essays, this is a stimulating and valuable collection that positions 1950s Britain as a nation in vigorous dialogue with itself over both its history and its future, writes Peter Webster

Book review: electronic dreams. how 1980s Britain learned to love the computer by Tom Lean

In Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer, Tom Lean offers a new study of the history of personal computing by deftly tracing links between users, emerging technologies, makers and the wider context of government thinking and media in eighties Britain. With the book largely avoiding nostalgia, Peter Webster recommends this as essential reading for all those interested in discovering how Britain came to embrace the personal computer

SAS Open Journals. Overlaying an Open Journals service onto an institutional repository

In 2011, the School of Advanced Study, University of London (SAS) and the University of London Computer Centre (ULCC) worked jointly to develop the SAS Open Journals Service (SAS OJS). The project was funded by the JISC as part of its Scholarly Communications Programme, and aimed to create an open journal system that interfaced with the existing Institutional Repository (SAS-Space). This poster was presented at the 2012 Open Repositories conference in Edinburgh

The New Elizabethan Age: Culture, Society and National Identity after World War II

In The New Elizabethan Age: Culture, Society and National Identity after World War II, editors Irene Morra and Rob Gossedge bring together contributors to explore the emergence of a cultural ‘new Elizabethanism’ following the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the 1950s, which drew upon the historical example of the Elizabethans to express and channel a sense of dynamic modernity without relinquishing reverence for the past. While finding the central thesis of a ‘new Elizabethanism’ somewhat overdetermined across the essays, this is a stimulating and valuable collection that positions 1950s Britain as a nation in vigorous dialogue with itself over both its history and its future, writes Peter Webster for LSE Review of Books

Digital contemporary history: sources, tools, methods, issues

This essay suggests that there has been a relative lack of digitally enabled historical research on the recent past, when compared to earlier periods of history. It explores why this might be the case, focussing in particular on both the obstacles and some missing drivers to mass digitisation of primary sources for the 20th century. It suggests that the situation is likely to change, and relatively soon, as a result of the increasing availability of sources that were born digital, and of Web archives in particular. The article ends with some reflections on several shifts in method and approach, which that changed situation is likely to entail