In September 2024 the Royal Historical Society (RHS) launched its Members’ Directory. This is a new online resource for current Fellows and Members of the Society, enabling them to search for other historians who belong to the RHS by a range of attributes, including research interests and areas of study.
We hope creation of the Directory provides RHS Fellows, Associate Fellows, Members and Postgraduate Members with opportunities to make connections in order to pursue historical projects and research.
This post offers a brief guide to using the Directory with suggested searches that members of the Society may undertake.
Inclusion in the Directory is optional and the choice of individual Fellows and Members of the Society. If you are a member of the Society and would like your name and research interests adding to the resource, details of how to do so are provided at the end of this post.
On 11 September 2024 the Royal Historical Society (RHS) launched its online Members’ Directory. The Directory is a resource available to current members of the Society to identify fellow historians—at all career stages—with research interests similar to their own, or in areas they wish to explore as their own work develops.
We hope creation of the Directory provides RHS Fellows, Associate Fellows, Members and Postgraduate Members with opportunities to connect in order to pursue historical projects and research.
The following post is a brief guide to using the Directory, and the different searches members of the Society can undertake within this new resource.
1. Who may access the Directory?
The RHS Members’ Directory is reserved for current Fellows, Associate Fellows, Members and Postgraduate Members of the Royal Historical Society. Members of the Society have been sent direct communication (11 September 2024) with details of how to register for and access the resource.
2. Who is included in the Directory?
The Directory lists the research interests of Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society. Inclusion in the Directory is the choice of each individual member of the Society, as is the extent of the information each member chooses to provide about their research interests.
Between April and July 2024 all members of the Society were invited, by email, to sign up for inclusion in the Directory and, if willing, to submit information according to a range of fields including the subject areas, chronology and geography of their research.
3. What information does the Directory record about a member who chooses to opt in?
Members of the Directory are invited (but not required) to provide information on the following three areas of their research interests:
- Disciplines: relating to broad subject fields of, and approaches to, historical research – for example, Cultural and Social History / Economic History / Local and Regional History / Political History;
- Time periods: relating to the chronological range of a member’s research interests;
- Regions: relating to the geographical focus and scope of their academic work.
Members may also provide the following for inclusion in the Directory:
- content for a free-text ‘keywords’ field to describe their research interests, and the geographical remit of their research, in greater detail: for example, ‘national identity’, ‘the Scottish Highlands’, ‘public history’;
- an ORCID ID code, which is a member’s persistent digital identifier that that distinguishes their work from that of every other researcher;
- an email contact address of their choosing.
In addition, each member’s record includes reference to that person’s membership status within the Royal Historical Society (e.g. Fellow or Associate Fellow) and their country of residence, though no institutional or private addresses are provided in the Directory.
The Directory draws on the Society’s membership database. Changes of personal records in the database (for example, email address or academic title) can be made within the Directory using the Edit Profile option. These changes will automatically appear in the Directory via weekly updates.
4. How can I search the Directory as a member of the Society?
Members of the Society can search the Directory in the following ways:
4.1. By Person / People
The Directory may be searched by personal name (forename and surname) via the ‘keyword’ box.
Because name searches use the keyword box, some results may draw on other fields of a person’s entry: for example, a search for ‘George Smith’ will also identify any person in the Directory who lists ‘George III’ as a research interest in the free text field. The instances of this will, of course, be very low and all results lists are ranked to ensure the results closest to your search appear at the top of the list.
Results lists are ordered alphabetically by surname, and may be ordered A-Z or Z-A as for all results lists. Results are displayed 10 or 20 people per page.
4.2. By Area of Research Interest: Disciplines
The Directory’s default setting is to list all RHS Fellows and Members who have opted in to the resource. Users may then filter the list using the ‘Areas of Research Interests’ options on the left-hand side of the screen.
The Directory provides 19 categories in the Disciplines field. All 19 are displayed before a search is undertaken with bracketed numbers referring to the number of people in the Directory with this disciplinary interest. Select a Disciplines option to restrict the results list to just those RHS members with a research interest in, for example, ‘Economic History’ (currently 327 people) or the ‘History of Literature & Print Culture’ (currently 344 people).
You may select and combine multiple options within this or the other ‘Area of Research Interest’ categories: for example, those members who have an interest in ‘Literature & Print Culture’ and ‘Women and Gender History’.
4.3. By Area of Research Interest: Time Periods
Users may also refine the Directory to show members by the broad ‘Time Period’ of their research, again either singly or in combination with other options in this category.
The time periods selected draw on widely used chronological ranges and terms, of principal use in the study of Western societies. We appreciate that these categories will not best reflect the extent and terminology for disciplines for all members of the Directory; but hope these allow each user to identify the date range/s that most closely apply to their research interests.
4.4. By Area of Research Interest: Regions
As above, you may refine the Directory to show the region of historical research and activity—once again either singly or in combination with other options.
4.5. By Membership, 1: categories of Royal Historical Society membership
Users may restrict results to show members who belong to one or more of the Society’s four membership categories: Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member.
- Fellows are established historians elected to the Society for their contribution to historical scholarship;
- Associate Fellows include historians at an earlier career stage who have not yet published a monograph or series of articles, or may support history through professional roles such as teaching or curation;
- Members are those with an interest in history that is typically personal and individual;
- Postgraduate Members are students working towards a postgraduate degree (masters or PhD) in a field of historical research.
For more on these categories, see the Join Us pages of the Society’s website.
4.6. By Membership, 2: countries of residence
You may also limit results to those members in the Directory who reside in a particular country. This data is drawn from the Society’s membership database and provides a listing of country only.
4.7. By the keyword search box
Via the keyword box in the top left-hand corner of the screen, users may search the Directory by a chosen word or phrase. Participants in the Directory are invited to include a free text description of their research, and the keyword search will match records with search queries where these exist.
The keyword search identifies hits in all elements of a person’s membership record. Therefore, a search for French Revolution will identify members with the personal name form ‘French’ as well as free text references in the ‘French Revolution’, plus (for example) the ‘French enlightenment’ and ‘revolution’. Results are ranked by weight, with personal name matches shown at the top of the list, and the least exact matches at the end of the results list.
To focus a keyword search, please use quotation marks: a search for “French Revolution” identifies only those members with this term in their record.
5. Putting your searches together*
Users may combine the options above to identify members of the Society in whose research and attributes they may be interested. For example, a search for current members:
- with a research interest in Economic History, plus the eighteenth century, plus the Caribbean identifies 21 people;
- with an interest in ‘global’ history (via keywords) and the early modern period identifies 27 people;
- who are Fellows or Associate Fellows resident in Ireland identifies 41 people;
- who are Fellows of the Society, resident in the UK, with research interests in Political History, North America and in the twentieth century identifies 190 people
*Numbers provided here were correct at the launch date of the Directory. As the Directory is a dynamic resource, numbers by category will change over time
Having completed a search, users may reset to begin a new search by clicking on the ‘RHS Directory’ label at the top of the page.
6. I’m a current member of the Society: how do I gain access to the Directory?
The Directory was made available from Wednesday 11 September 2024. All current Fellows and Members of the Society were sent an individual email on the afternoon of 11 September with information on how to create a personal login to access to the Directory.
This login requires the email address which you have supplied to the Society (and at which you will have received the aforementioned communication), plus a password of your choosing. Once created, please use these login details to access the Directory. If you did not receive an initial email on 11 September, please first check your Junk folders for this communication. If it has not arrived, please contact rhs.directory@royalhistsoc.org.
7. I’m a current member of the Society: how do add my details to the Directory?
All current Fellows and Members of the Society may register for and access the Directory as above. If you wish to add your details to the Directory, you may do so by accessing the site and using the Edit Profile option (top right of the Directory screen) to do so, choosing what level of information you provide to be displayed on your Directory page.
Please use this same route if you wish to update your existing listing on the Directory, or to remove yourself from the Directory if you no longer wish your details to appear. If you have any questions about these actions please contact rhs.directory@royalhistsoc.org.
We hope this brief guide is useful to Fellows and Members of the Society in getting started with the Directory.
If you have any questions about the RHS Members’ Directory and / or its use, please contact rhs.directory@royalhistsoc.org.
If you are interested in joining the Royal Historical Society, please see our Join Us pages which provide details of our four membership categories: Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member.
Applications to join the Society are welcome at any time.
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