This searchable database of the indexed contents of British public library annual reports, from the period 1850-1919, was set up in July 2001 as the fruit of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), conducted by Dr. Chris Baggs and G.K. Peatling at the Department of Information Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth.
This database is largely derived from the collection of annual reports held at the Thomas Parry Library at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. This collection includes around 2,300 annual reports issued by public libraries falling in the period 1850-1919. A sample of these reports, approximately 500 in number, are fully indexed in the database. The current coverage of this sample may be searched here. It is intended to extend this coverage where possible.
The database does not contain full-text access to the annual reports themselves, but provides a searchable description of their contents, as well as some location information.
Two articles describing technical aspects of this project have been published in the Journal of the Association of History and Computing, and may be of methodological interest to researchers in a variety of historical fields. The articles describe respectively: