6 | Facilities and Contacts

History and its joint schools are convened and administered by the Faculty of History. A list of useful contacts is shown below: if you are not sure who can help, please contact the History Undergraduate Office for advice (undergraduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk).

The Directors of Undergraduate Studies in History for 2025-26 are Dr. Catherine Holmes (catherine.holmes@history.ox.ac.uk) and Prof. Giuseppe Marcocci (giuseppe.marcocci@history.ox.ac.uk).

Welfare Contact

The Welfare contact for the Faculty of History is Ms. Maya Blackwell (maya.blackwell@history.ox.ac.uk). She is available to talk confidentially about any welfare issues you may be having, either in-person or via email.

Disability Contacts

The Disability Co-ordinator for undergraduate students is Vicky Anderton – undergraduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk – she can help with all general enquiries. Students who need to record lectures or have a note-taker should also contact her. Students can also talk to Vicky about the Disability Equality Committee if they would like something raised or discussed there.

Harassment Advisors

The History Faculty Harassment Advisors are Dr Sloan Mahone (sloan.mahone@history.ox.ac.uk), Dr Conrad Leyser (conrad.leyser@history.ox.ac.uk) and Dr Maria Misra (anna-maria.misra@keble.ox.ac.uk). Students are welcome to contact them for a confidential discussion about any concerns. Find out more about Harassment advice here.

Other useful History Faculty contacts

The Faculty of History is located on the second floor of the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, OX2 6AH.

Floorplans for the Schwarzman Centre can be found as a PDF here: Schwarzman Centre Floorplans

The History Faculty Library (HFL) is located in the Radcliffe Camera, Radcliffe Square, OX1 3BG.

The Examination Schools is located at 75-81 High Street, OX1 4BG.

On occasion, some lectures or classes may be held elsewhere in the University. In these cases, students may wish to refer to the interactive map of the University, which is available at https://www.ox.ac.uk/visitors/map.

The location and accessibility of many University buildings are described in this online Access Guide: https://www.ox.ac.uk/visitors/map

If you have any concerns about accessibility, please contact the Disability Co-ordinator in the first instance.

Students at Oxford are fortunate in having access to libraries and museums in Oxford of an unrivalled scale and variety. You will also need access to many online resources, especially for journal articles, but also for other kinds of historical sources and output, and Oxford also has a rich collection of these (see further 6.5).

The following libraries and museums are particularly useful to undergraduate historians:

There are several other specialized University libraries which undergraduate historians are encouraged to use for relevant books:

For more details and opening hours of individual libraries see https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries

Each college has its own library, for use by members of that college, and which hold a range of history books covering a wide variety of topics. Some colleges may also have archival collections containing manuscripts dating back to the medieval period. Access to college libraries is normally restricted to members of the college only. Opening hours are determined by colleges individually.

6.4.2 | Databases

There are a variety of databases and resources that can be accessed via SOLO, and via the Databases A-Z resource: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/az.php

Important databases for Historians include:

• The Bibliography of British and Irish History
• The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Early English Books Online
• JISC Library Hub Discover

See https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/history for guidance to the variety of resources available.

IT training

Students wishing to improve their IT skills are advised to look at the courses run by the IT Learning Centre: http://help.it.ox.ac.uk/courses/training

The Centre provide a wide variety of courses to help improve your skills in Microsoft Services (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams etc), as well as email etiquette and, IT specific to Oxford. These take place both face-to-face and online. The University also provides self-service learning: https://skills.it.ox.ac.uk/courses-home

The Faculty organises training and workshop sessions on electronic resources for first-year students and for students preparing their theses. Support and training are available through the Bodleian History Faculty Library (HFL). Check out the HFL training schedule at: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/history/training and and https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/4736.

For individual and advanced guidance, contact Rachel D’Arcy Brown, History Faculty Librarian (Teaching) (rachel.darcy-brown@bodleian.ox.ac.uk). She can arrange short courses for small groups at your request. You may find these of particular use in your second year when you will be embarking on independent research for your undergraduate thesis. 

IT training is provided by IT Services: an up-to-date list of courses can be found here: https://www.it.ox.ac.uk/it-training

Students can also buy a range of discounted software from the IT Services shop: https://www.it.ox.ac.uk/get-software.

Oxford University Computer Usage Rules and Etiquette

The attention of undergraduates is drawn to the Oxford University Computer Usage Rules and Etiquette, available on the University website at http://www.it.ox.ac.uk/governance-strategy-and-policies. All users of IT and network facilities are bound by these rules.

Please also bear in mind the University’s guidance on participation in social media, which can be found at http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/life/it/socialmedia.