Searching Catalogs for Primary Sources
To find books, DVDs, government documents, maps, manuscripts, and much more - everything except articles - use a library catalog.
Catalogs also list collections of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and records of organizations, but they do not list individual items in those collections.
OskiCat = most UC Berkeley libraries
MELVYL = all UC campus libraries, including all UC Berkeley libraries. Use the Request button to borrow items from another UC campus.
What's the difference? more details here
Searching Article Databases for Primary Sources
To find magazine, journal or newspaper articles: use an article database. Article databases allow you to search for articles by topic, author, etc. Some (not all) article databases link to the full text of articles.
Primary Source Databases (all), including newspaper databases.
Look carefully at the description of each database. Note:
- what years of publication are included
- what types of materials are included
- does the database cover a particular academic discipline (such as History) or whether it is interdisciplinary
In some article databases you may click on the 
button, which will either locate the full text of the article online, or allow you to search OskiCat to determine if the magazine or newspaper title is located on campus.
Online Archive of California & Calisphere
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). Collection guides, also known as finding aids, are descriptive guides to archival (primary source) collections. These collections may be physically located in archives or digitized on the web. The guides 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.