Library & Cultural Services: Sociology: Social History. Social Change

General

International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam)
The world's largest documentation and research centre in the field of social history. See its Social History Portal to digitised collections of social and labour history.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Including the American Memory gateway to digitised historical materials, organised into more than 100 thematic collections
UNDP Human Development Reports
Respected series of reports taking stock of the social & economic situation globally, regionally & in individual countries around the world.
UN Report on the World Social Situation
UN Digital Library has digitised this respected publication back to 1952-

United Kingdom. Ireland

56a Infoshop
Radical social centre near Elephant & Castle (South London) with bookshop and print archives including much ephemera, covering topics such as: (trans)feminism, anti-colonialism, anti-globalisation, environmentalism, squatting, anti-fascism, No Borders, queer politics/organising, anarchism, situationist ideas, autonomism, anti-civilisation, anti-capitalism, radical pedagogy, diy, bikes, self-care, cooperatives, permaculture, consensus organising, class struggle, black radical histories.
Bishopsgate Institute & Special Collections
Amazing archives (many relating to London) documenting the experiences of everyday people, and the individuals and organisations who have strived for social, political and cultural change
Duchas.ie
Extensive digitisation of the National Folklore Collection at UCD (Dublin)
Elizabeth Roberts Working Class Oral History Archive

Empire online
This database offers approximately 60,000 images of original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies.
Federated Access Login Options: The UK Access Management Federation
John Johnson collection of printed ephemera
A selection of items from the John Johnson Collection of printed ephemera, offering insights into life in Britain during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Subjects include 19th century entertainment, the booktrade, popular prints, crimes, murders and executions, and advertising.
Institutional login

London Lives 1690-1800
London Lives makes available, in a fully digitised and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, with a particular focus on plebeian Londoners. The resource includes over 240,000 manuscript and printed pages from eight London archives and is supplemented by fifteen datasets created by other projects.

Mass observation online
This resource offers revolutionary access to one of the most important archives for the study of social history in the modern era (1937-1956). Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs.
Federated Access Login Options: The UK Access Management Federation
Mass Observation Project
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives. Still growing, it is an important source for qualitative social data in the UK.
UK Access Management Federation Login (UKFAM)

MayDay Rooms
London archive with collections focusing on social struggles, radicalism and acts of resistance from the 1960s to the present. Collections include: feminist poetry, techno paraphernalia, situationist magazines, histories of riots and industrial transformations, educational experiments, and prison writing
MiSoC
ESRC research centre for quantitative analysis of micro-social change, based at ISER, University of Essex
Museum of English Rural Life
Based at University of Reading. Large scale digitisation project of photographic images from its archives.
National Archives
The national archive of the UK, covers all areas including business.
People's Collection Wales
Social Trends
Important publication from the ONS offering data on British society. Online 2000-2012 and in print (1970-2012) at HA 1122
Working Class Movement Library
Extensive library housed at Salford, recording over 200 years of activism by working people in Britain.

See also the TUC Library, housed at London Met University, a huge resource for British labour history, includes the digitised TUC annual reports 1868-1968