Primary Source Digital Collections
Internet History of Science Sourcebook
The Sourcebook lists digital collections categorized from Antiquity to the present.
-
Electronic Enlightenment
Offers extensive access to the web of correspondence between the greatest thinkers and writers of the long eighteenth century and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers.
-
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Indexes over 125,000 volumes of early works printed in England or in English. These works constitute a significant portion of items included in the English Short Title Catalogue. It contains most of the works listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplements.
-
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)
Primary source material from the nineteenth century and beyond. Particularly strong in British politics and society, European literature from 1790-1840 (via the Corvey collection), Asia and the West, and British popular culture.
-
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
Contains over 180,000 items published in Great Britain and its colonies, including those in North America, during the 18th Century. This database complements the materials found in Early English Books Online (EEBO), which covers 1475-1700. The resource is thus a rich source of information about the American and French Revolutions and the Age of Reason, scientific and medical advances, literature, law, religion, industry, and all aspects of 18th Century life in Britain and its colonies.
Locating Primary Sources
There are many access points to the vast collections of primary sources available to you.
Certain words and phrases (part of the Library of Congress Subject Headings classification system) will find primary sources in library catalogs. You can use these in OskiCat or Melvyl:
-correspondence
-sources
-diaries
-personal narratives
-interviews
-speeches
-documents
-archives
-early works to 1800
-newspapers
For specific search strategies, see the Library's Guide to Finding Historical Primary Sources.
Your searches will be more successful if, in your preliminary research, you identify specific:
- names of relevant individuals and organizations
- dates of events
- places
- what terminology was used at the time by participants and observers? (ex: negro or colored instead of african american)
Organizations with manuscript collections make their collections accessible with finding aids. The tools below allow you to search the finding aids by topic, helping you identify collections available around the world that may inform your research. The Online Archive of California includes finding aids from historical societies, government agencies, libraries in California, including Bancroft Library, and is your best choice for locating archival collections in California.
-
ArchiveGrid
Searchable descriptions of nearly a million historical documents, personal papers, and family histories kept in libraries, museums, and archives worldwide. Includes information on how to examine and order copies.
-
Archive Finder (including ArchivesUSA and NIDS UK/Ireland)
Directory which describes over 206,200 collections of primary source material housed in thousands of repositories across the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland.