Library Item of the Month - Roaming around the Journal Collection

 

As expected, we hold the shipping-related serials: the Lloyds Register and Lloyds List.  There are no less than 5 research guides on the museum’s website to introduce these periodicals to readers (view them here).

 

An extensive run of Lloyds is available to all readers on the open shelves in our Reading Room, alongside the Navy List, the Mercantile Navy List, Register of Yachts, Mariner’s Mirror, and Sea Breezes.  We also have the latest issue of the Janes’ publications (but previous years stretch back as far as 1898 and can be ordered from our on-site store).

 

For those wishing to delve into the British shipbuilding industry, the Caird has several titles covering the first part of the 20th Century: the Shipbuilder and Marine Engineer, the Shipbuilding and Shipping Record and, The Syren and Shipping (starting as early as 1887).  Despite being a fantastic source of photographs of early merchant ships and passenger liners, these titles can pose a challenge in terms of access, as readers need to know the date of the publication they are seeking.  The library is currently working on a solution to this: with help from our invaluable band of volunteers, we have set up a project to create a searchable index of all the illustrations in the Shipbuilder and Marine Engineer.  The full run of this title covers 71 volumes over 60 years and we are now three quarters through.  Another volunteer is working on the journal of the nautical training school: Osborne and yet another is nearing the completion of an even more detailed index of the Illustrated War News (the latter will allow readers to search by subject, named person or named ship).  Once completed, these indexes will be made available to readers visiting the Reading Room.

 

Other illustrated journals in the collection include both the Illustrated London News (both print copy from store or as an e-resource in the Reading Room) and Navy and Army Illustrated.  

 

 

For more up-to-date information on ships and shipping, our range of current journals include: Naval Architect, The Motor Ship, Shipping Today and Yesterday, Ships Monthly and Ships in Focus. If researchers have a particular interest in warships we have no fewer than 5 current titles.

 

Visitors arrive at the library seeking information on all types of specialist craft and it is likely in most cases that we have a journal to suit them.  

We hold both Yachting Monthly and Yachting World (from the very first issue), along with Classic Boat, the RYA Magazine, Civil Service Sailing, Clyde Cruising Club, Humber Yawl Club, and Little Boat. 

 

We have journals covering tall ships, wooden boats, small craft, Norfolk wherries, cobbles and keelboats.  We even have a couple on model boats!

 

The great ocean liners, past and present, fill the pages of Sea Lines – the magazine of the Ocean Liner Society – and the great cruising era of the 1920’s is evoked in Blue Peter (as shown in it’s wonderfully illustrated covers).   

 

 

As with so many of our journals – a title seemingly devoted to ship-related matters can also prove a mine of information to the genealogist.  In amongst the adverts and articles on pleasure cruising, it regularly features news of the nautical training establishment H.M.S. Worcester – as seen in these pictures taken of a prize day on board the ship with Cadet Rodick receiving his award.

 

 

 

A comprehensive selection of the latest issues of our current journals is displayed at the back of the ‘quiet area’ in the Reading Room.  In addition to ships and shipping, these titles encompass maritime history, navigation, nautical archaeology, dockyards, astronomy, art, science, genealogy, cartography, slavery, flags, knots, clocks and sundials.

 

To search our catalogue for journals, choose ‘Journal Title’ from the drop-down menu on the Caird Library Catalogue page at: