WorldCatThis link opens in a new windowBooks and other materials in libraries worldwide. Records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 12th century.
Updated daily.
Online Archive of CaliforniaProvides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California
The central purpose of the California State University Japanese American History Digitization Project is to improve access to CSU archival collections about the history of Japanese Americans and to develop a functional model for ongoing planning and collaboration among the CSU archival and library community.
State archives are digitizing documents, photographs, videos, oral histories, music, deeds, artifacts, court records, slave emancipation records, newspapers, reports, military records, and so much more.
More than 32 million descriptions of records held by The UK National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the UK. Over 9 million records are available for download.
Daily Forty-Niner/DIG Mag/DÍG en Español ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowContains historical issues of Daily Forty-Niner (1949 - ), Forty-Niter (1958 - 1966), DIG MAG (2014 - ), DÍG EN ESPAÑOL (2019 - ), UniverCity (1973 - 1979), and The University Magazine (1973 - 2003). This archive does not include stories that were or are published online-only.
A listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar. The site has not been updated since 2015, so links may be out of date. However, the list itself has value, and researchers may Google the names of the repositories therein, or contact the archivist for help finding them.
Gale Primary Sources - Archives UnboundThis link opens in a new windowPrimary Source documents that support research in African American Studies, American Studies, Asian American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. The collection also has primary source documents focused on Business and Economic History and International Relations.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspaper CollectionThis link opens in a new windowThe Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection features the newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and broadsheets that form the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian library in Oxford, UK, covering the period 1672-1737.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers CollectionThis link opens in a new windowThe Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection represents the largest single collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century English news media available from the British Library and includes more than 1,000 pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers from the period.
Women's Magazine ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowCollection 1 & 2 (1846 - 2005) Access to the backfiles of the foremost titles of this type, including Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Woman’s Day, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores.
Women's Wear Daily ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowWomen's Wear Daily magazine on fashion, marketing, retail business, and twentieth-century material culture. Holdings from 1910 to most recent six months.
America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1876This link opens in a new windowThis offers fully searchable, facsimile reproductions of 650 historical American newspapers. Northern & “Old Northwest” newspapers are covered up until 1876. Southern newspaper coverage stops by the 1820s.
Historical Chinese NewspapersThis link opens in a new windowFull text historical content of 12 English language Chinese newspapers published 1831-1952 in China.
Vogue ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowThe Vogue Archive presents the full run of the American Vogue, 1892 to present, for the library market. Every page, cover, advertisement, image, and fold out is indexed, searchable, and viewable in beautiful high-resolution color.
Eighteenth Century JournalsThis link opens in a new windowBringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
LGBT Magazine ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowComplete issues of 27 key titles, chronicling the history and evolution of LGBT history and culture, including civil rights, health, lifestyle, politics, art and more from local, national and international writers, editors, thinkers, organizers and activists. From 1950s to 2015.
Historical Hartford Courant, 1764 - 1992This link opens in a new windowAmerica's longest continuously published newspaper, the Hartford Courant is literally older than the nation. It provides researchers a front-row seat from which to view the birth of an independent nation. Firsthand accounts of colonist reactions to the Stamp Act, Boston Tea Party and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Coverage of 1764-1990, including news articles, photos, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, cartoons, and more.
Index of Medieval ArtThis link opens in a new windowImages and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century.
AATA Online: Abstracts of International Conservation LiteratureThis link opens in a new windowAATA Online is a comprehensive database of over 130,000 abstracts of literature related to the preservation and conservation of material cultural heritage. AATA now includes selected subject-specific bibliographies produced as part of the Getty Conservation Institute's own conservation and scientific research projects or as part of specific collaborative projects in which the Institute is involved.
Acta SanctorumThis link opens in a new windowActa Sanctorum is a principal source for research into the societies and cultures of early Christian and medieval Europe. This collection includes text published over a period of 300 years by the Societe des Bollandistes.
Index of Medieval ArtThis link opens in a new windowImages and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century.
VOAHA III: Virtual Oral/Aural History ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowVOAHA enables you to access the full audio recordings of oral histories that have been deposited in Special Collections of the University Library. The CSULB oral history collections have been assembled from a number of sources and cover topics ranging from women's social history, labor and ethnic studies to Long Beach Area history and the musical developments in Southern California.
California Digital Newspaper CollectionThis link opens in a new windowThis collection contains 492,311 issues comprising 5,430,664 pages and 37,145,576 articles. The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a project of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California, Riverside.
California Newspaper ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowFull text facsimile content of California newspapers from 1846 to date. Includes Long Beach newspapers, 1938-1977, Orange County Register 1913-2016 and many other regional California newspapers.
Daily Forty-Niner/DIG Mag/DÍG en Español ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowContains historical issues of Daily Forty-Niner (1949 - ), Forty-Niter (1958 - 1966), DIG MAG (2014 - ), DÍG EN ESPAÑOL (2019 - ), UniverCity (1973 - 1979), and The University Magazine (1973 - 2003). This archive does not include stories that were or are published online-only.
Political Extremism and Radicalism in the 20th CenturyThis link opens in a new windowCollection of primary documents covering a range of fringe political movements and a broad assortment of both far-right and radical left political groups. Cover 1900s to 2010 when the world saw the formation of several movements. Some collections included are Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda; John Birch Society; Black Panthers; Norwegian Nazi Party; American Radicalism Collection; Searchlight Archive; and more.
Black Abolitionist PapersThis link opens in a new windowPrimary source of individual and community activism within the Black abolitionist community. Covering the period 1830-1865, the collection presents the massive, international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings and publications of the activists themselves.
JSTORThis link opens in a new windowArchive of scholarly journals cover to cover. Interdisciplinary coverage of journals back to the first issue through to the last few years. Also- Includes over 2 million images originally from Artstor.
Academic Search CompleteThis link opens in a new windowA comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database, with more than 5,300 full text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. Offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format.
Updated daily.
Biography and Genealogy Master IndexThis link opens in a new windowComprehensive index to over 13 million biographical sketches in current and retrospective reference books, covering both contemporary and historical figures throughout the world. A complete list of sources is available at the top of each screen under Sources Indexed.
Updated twice yearly.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), 1700-1800This link opens in a new windowFull text of more than 180,000 Eighteenth Century titles in seven topic areas, from books and directories, bibles and sheet music, to sermons and pamphlets. Includes every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century and thousands printed in the Americas.
Early European BooksThis link opens in a new windowEEB provides high resolution full color digital access to thousands of pre-1701 books and rare incunabula printed in Europe. Our subscription allows access to materials from: Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Wellcome Library (London), and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
EEBO Early English Books Online, 1473 -1700This link opens in a new windowA full text collection of over 100,000 facsimile e-books. Provides full text access to books in many subject areas, including: English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science.
African Diaspora: 1860-PresentThis link opens in a new windowDiscover the world history, culture, and migration of people of African descent with a focus on communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France. Includes primary source documents, personal papers, journals, newsletters, and court documents.
Colonial America: 1606-1822This link opens in a new windowFull text primary documents covering the period 1606-1822 from the British Colonial Office relating to North America, including the American Revolution.
Slavery & Antislavery: A Transnational ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowThis 4-part archive includes 5.4 million pages of history, including collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions.
USC Shoah Foundation: Visual History ArchiveThis link opens in a new windowDedicated to making the audio-visual interviews of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, the USC Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education provides a compelling voice for education, research, and action.
Some research requires digging in to archival collections, but there are times when general library resources can satisfy your need for primary sources:
