HIST 101: Latin America

Latin American Pamphlet Digital Collection A searchable collection Latin American pamphlets published during the 19th and the early 20th centuries held at Harvard's Widener Library.

Linking the Americas A digital collection of Stanford University Press titles dealing with Latin America and some rare and manuscript materials.      

• Latin American Newspapers Series 1 (from the World Newspaper Archive)
  This growing archive of Latin American newspapers contains more than 150,000 pages of content. New content is being added regularly and will eventually contain more than 1.5 million pages. Included in the collection are: Comercio from Peru; El Dictamen, Mexican Herald and Excelsior from Mexico; Prensa and Razon from Argentina; and more. For more Latin American newspapers, search the newly released Latin American Newspapers Series 2. Both series are part of the World News Archive project from Readex/Newsbank.
  
• Latin American Newspapers Series 2 (from the World Newspaper Archive)
  This archive of Latin American newspapers contains thousands of pages of content. Included in the collection are: Critica from Argentina; Diario de la Marina from Cuba; Universal from Caracas, Venezuela; and more. For more Latin American newspapers, see Latin American Newspapers Series 2. Both series are part of the World News Archive project from Readex/Newsbank.
  
• Empire Online
  Includes 70,000 images of original manuscript and printed documents to support study and research in the field of colonial and empire studies. Five sections include: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c. 1607-1969. In addition to original documents, this database contains scholarly essays and analysis.
  
• World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean
  Include a comprehensive range of contemporary and historical documents for the region, providing research across the humanities, both for current Latin America and the Caribbean and as a historical perspective back through the colonial period.
  

Before digital storage became easy and cheap, microfilm was a way for libraries to maintain large collections of newspapers, government documents, and historical documents while saving physical storage space. The UC Berkeley Libraries still have extensive microform (microfilm and microfiche) collections, containing valuable information for researchers.

Since each roll of microfilm contains thousands of tiny images of the original pages of a document, you'll need a microfilm reader to magnify the images enough to read them. The UC Berkeley Newspapers and Microforms Department (40 Doe Library) has machines that read, print, and scan images from microfilm and microfiche.

Microfilm and microfiche owned by the UC Berkeley Libraries can be found through OskiCat; use Advanced Keyword Search to limit your search to "All Microforms." In the News/Micro collection, microfilm rolls and microfiche cards are shelved with their own numbering system; click here for a PDF of the collection's floorplan.

Guides to over 20,000 collections housed in 200 libraries, archives, historical societies, special collections and museums across California are searchable at the  Online Archive of California (OAC). Analogous to catalog records for books, collection guides (also known as finding aids) are the descriptive records used to find, understand, and locate archival resources and unique materials. They help users learn more about the scope of a collection so they know if it is likely to meet their research needs.

Digitized versions of photographs, documents, newspapers, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, and other cultural artifacts that are contributed by these California institutions to the OAC make up the content included in Calisphere.

These two websites exist because they serve two very different user needs. For research-oriented users who want to go beyond what is available online and locate the actual, physical item, the OAC is the best starting point. For users whose primary interest is to view digitized images and documents, Calisphere is a place to explore online content. In addition, Calisphere provides K-12 educators with a subset of content organized and aligned with California Content Standards.

[Content adapted from CDL's Digital Special Collections.]