ognize relevant sources when you encounter them. Knowing key dates will enable you to navigate manuscript collections arranged in chronological order.ognize relevant sources when you encounter them. Knowing key dates will enable you to navigate manuscript collections arranged in chronological order.ognize relevant sources when you encounter them. Knowing key dates will enable you to navigate manuscript collections arranged in chronological order.Reference and secondary sources can help you decipher documents found in archives.  Letters in manuscript collections exchanged between people who knew each may mention other people, events, ideas, and opinions, but they probably won't define them.  Reference sources can come to the rescue. You can also use background sources to refine a topic and for help developing a research question.


Begin with background research to familiarize yourself with the key names, dates, themes, events, places, and organizations related to your topic.  And think about the kinds of sources you are hoping to find. Then search catalogs, databases , online portals , and published sources (books, articles, dissertations, etc.) to discover collections and to find out which repositories hold them.  You can also approach your research geographically, by identifying research libraries, local libraries, government archives, historical societies, and other repositories located in the vicinity of your research topic. Note that there are MANY places to look for archival materials and other primary sources.  Searching for printed archives will lead you to digitized materials and digital items will lead you to printed collections, so be flexible and creative when you search.


ted archives will lead you to digitized materials and digital items will lead you to printed collections, so be flexible and creative when you search.ted archives will lead you to digitized materials and digital items will lead you to printed collections, so be flexible and creative when you search.ted archives will lead you to digitized materials and digital items will lead you to printed collections, so be flexible and creative when you search.Once you know where collections are held or have decided to search repositories where your topic is centered, explore repository websites to discover archival collections and other materials using available search tools. Closely read archival finding aids and speak to library staff about your project.


Search Tools:  Catalogs & Databases:
Following are some of the major search tools that will help you find primary sources in multiple formats across repositories.  Also see the Finding Digitized Resources section for additional suggestions, including coverage of international resources. Try adding keywords such as sources, correspondence, diaries, interviews, personal narratives, etc. to your search to find primary sources. For the best results: Be flexible when you search; search multiple catalogs, databases, and portals; be persistent when you encounter outdated links; and remember that not all collections will have detailed finding aids or catalog records and may not show up in online searches.  Be sure to also thoroughly search at the repository level and speak with reference staff.


or catalog records and may not show up in online searches.  Be sure to also thoroughly search at the repository level and speak with reference staff.Archive Grid: Searchable database containing over 7 million records describing archival collections in 1,400 libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies around the world.  Also useful for identifying archival repositories by location. Read more in our GC Library blog post about ArchiveGrid .

Google: Put your subject's name or multi-word topic in quotes and add archival keywords to find collections.  For example, try a search like this: "A. Philip Randolph" AND (papers OR manuscripts OR archives OR collection) or this: "("civil rights" OR "civil liberties") AND (papers OR manuscripts OR archives OR collection) .  Google can be helpful for finding collections that may not turn up in searches of databases like WorldCat and ArchiveGrid.  And it can also help you find library research guides, bibliographies, and other reference tools that can streamline your research.


and ArchiveGrid.  And it can also help you find library research guides, bibliographies, and other reference tools that can streamline your research.WorldCat (FirstSearch): Holdings of thousands of American and international libraries. Make Interlibrary Loan (ILL) requests with the Find it! button. Searchable in English, French, and Spanish.

WorldCat Discovery: WorldCat Discovery is a catalog and discovery system containing millions of records for print and electronic holdings in thousands of libraries around the world.

Additional Search Tools

Archive Finder (NYPL Database): This database is available at all New York Public Library locations and provides information and detailed indexing to manuscript collections from over 5,700 repositories in the U.S. and U.K., including NUCMC records created between 1959 and 1985 which are not available in WorldCat.  The database covers the entire collection of NUCMC from 1959 to the present.


cords created between 1959 and 1985 which are not available in WorldCat.  The database covers the entire collection of NUCMC from 1959 to the present.Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative: Search the finding aids for archival collections held in libraries, archives, and cultural heritage organizations across New York state.  Browse a list of repositories that contribute finding aids to the database.  Note that this is an ongoing initiative and not all repositories in NYS currently contribute to this database.

Government Archives: Government archives, whether national, state, or municipal, are often quite massive, holding millions of items.  They usually have their own search tools, so when you are looking for government records, you can usually go straight to the website of the agency to look there.  See the Government Archives section for tips and links.


r government records, you can usually go straight to the website of the agency to look there.  See the Government Archives section for tips and links.National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC): A gateway operated by the Library of Congress for searching 1.5 million catalog records describing archival and manuscript collections and individual manuscripts in public, college and university, and special libraries. Records for manuscript collections created since 1986 may be found in WorldCat or through searching NUCMC directly.  Records created from 1959 to 1985 are available in the print volumes of NUCMC, which are available at the New York Public Library and select CUNY locations, as well as in the database Archives Finder , which is available at select NYPL locations.  Digitized catalog and index volumes spanning 1963 to 1977 (with gaps) and the 2 volume Index to Personal Names in NUCMC, 1959-1984, are available in the Internet Archive .


index volumes spanning 1963 to 1977 (with gaps) and the 2 volume Index to Personal Names in NUCMC, 1959-1984, are available in the Internet Archive .SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context): SNAC "is a free, online resource that helps users discover biographical and historical information about persons, families, and organizations that created or are documented in historical resources (primary source documents) and their connections to one another. Users can locate archival collections and related resources held at cultural heritage institutions around the world."

Digitized Sources: Also see the Finding Digitized Resources section of this guide for additional suggestions, including coverage of international resources. Digitized portals are efficient tools for identifying individual sources on a topic and can lead you to full analog and digital collections.


Repository-Level Searching:
Repository-level searching is an excellent way to to discover primary sources and an essential step in the research process.  When you find a collection that sounds promising for your topic, whether by searching a library catalog, database, digital portal, or Google, or whether you find it by following a footnote or bibliography entry, be sure to take the next step of thoroughly exploring the holdings of the repository. That's because when a library holds an archival collection on your topic, chances are very good that they will have additional primary and secondary sources in various formats relevant to your research.


ection on your topic, chances are very good that they will have additional primary and secondary sources in various formats relevant to your research.Steps for Repository-Level Searching: Visit the library's website to read about the collections as a whole and get practical information for visiting and accessing materials. Look for an A-Z list of archival collections or finding aids on the library's website and spend some time browsing through it.  Unlike keyword searching, which can only turn up what you are looking for, browsing opens up the possibility of discovering collections serendipitous ly. Search the library's finding aid database or archival portal if they have one. Check the website for a digitial portal and browse and search digitized collections. Search the library's regular catalog on your topic to find records for other primary and secondary sources on your topic. Look for research guides, reference tools, or topic guides to help you navigate holdings. And, most importantly, speak to the reference staff about your project. They can help streamline your research and point out helpful resources.


Research guides compiled by libraries with with notable resources in particular subject areas are a great way to discover analog and digitized primary sources and reference tools to help you use them.  We have dozens of subject-specific research guides at the GC , for instance, and many other libraries have them as well. If you are launching a research project in LGBTQIA+ studies and don't know where to begin, you could try this search in Google to find research guides compiled by libraries that hold materials on the topic: LGBTQ* AND (LibGuide OR research guide) .


ld try this search in Google to find research guides compiled by libraries that hold materials on the topic: LGBTQ* AND (LibGuide OR research guide) .ld try this search in Google to find research guides compiled by libraries that hold materials on the topic: LGBTQ* AND (LibGuide OR research guide) .ld try this search in Google to find research guides compiled by libraries that hold materials on the topic: LGBTQ* AND (LibGuide OR research guide) .(LibGuides is the platform many libraries use for their guides.) The search will turn up numerous guides, including the GC's own LGBTQ / Gender & Sexuality Studies guide , which contains links to archival and other resources.  Each library's guide will be different and will highlight the books, serials, archival collections, digitized materials, subscription databases, and open web resources  they are recommending to their researchers.  Just be aware that subscription resources linked from guides beyond the Grad Center will require local log in credentials.  Check the GC's A-Z list of databases to see if we subscribe to an electronic resource that interests you.  If not, try the NYPL's databases . You can also request books, articles, serials, microfilmed collections, and other resources via Interlibrary Loan if we do not hold them at the GC Library.


Tips for Finding Materials:


Tips for Finding Materials:Tips for Finding Materials:Background Research You don't have to know everything about your topic before you dive into primary sources, but having a basic sense of the people, organizations, places, themes, dates and events central to your topic will help you recognize potentially important archival collections when you encounter them.  See the Background Research tab in this guide and the separate Beyond Wikipedia research guide for tips and links to resources. Serendipity Browsing a library's list of collections online, exploring collections whose finding aids seem only tangentially-related to your topic, reading widely, and speaking to other researchers and library staff are all great ways to open up the chances of discovering relevant primary sources you weren't specifically looking for.  Serendipity can play a big role in discovering sources, so be sure to make time and space for it as you research your topic.


pecifically looking for.  Serendipity can play a big role in discovering sources, so be sure to make time and space for it as you research your topic.pecifically looking for.  Serendipity can play a big role in discovering sources, so be sure to make time and space for it as you research your topic.pecifically looking for.  Serendipity can play a big role in discovering sources, so be sure to make time and space for it as you research your topic.Analog & Digital Collections Printed archival collections will lead you to digitized items and digitized items will lead you to printed collections.  Be flexible and creative as you search to find sources in multiple formats. Searching Secondary Sources to Find Archival Materials Secondary and reference sources will not only help you put your topic in context, they will often lead you directly to archival collections.  Check the footnotes, bibliographies, and acknowledgments in books, dissertations, and other published sources for clues. You may learn about cataloged and uncataloged materials held in libraries and/or private collections. Published Guides to Manuscript Collections Published guides to manuscript collections can be easily overlooked in the quest to find archival materials.  However, these printed volumes, many of which were compiled in the pre-computer age, can be useful for identifying specific holdings and for getting a sense of a library's collections as a whole.


were compiled in the pre-computer age, can be useful for identifying specific holdings and for getting a sense of a library's collections as a whole. were compiled in the pre-computer age, can be useful for identifying specific holdings and for getting a sense of a library's collections as a whole. were compiled in the pre-computer age, can be useful for identifying specific holdings and for getting a sense of a library's collections as a whole.These guides typically contain summary descriptions of individual collections and indexes that allow you to identify holdings by subject or format. Though the descriptions in these printed volumes may well have been superseded by subsequent archival processing and electronic finding aids, they situate individual collections within a library's holdings and offer more collection level detail than you'd usually encounter in an A-Z list of holdings on a library's website.


ons within a library's holdings and offer more collection level detail than you'd usually encounter in an A-Z list of holdings on a library's website.ons within a library's holdings and offer more collection level detail than you'd usually encounter in an A-Z list of holdings on a library's website.ons within a library's holdings and offer more collection level detail than you'd usually encounter in an A-Z list of holdings on a library's website.Examples include: A Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the New-York Historical Society and the Guide to the Research Collections of the New York Public Library (also available in the Internet Archive .) Library Subject Headings Try a keyword search in CUNY's OneSearch or other library catalogs to find books on your topic.  Then, look at the subject headings used to describe those books and click on the most relevant terms to identify other library materials on the topic.  Keep track of the most useful subject headings and use them when searching archival databases as well. Reference Tools Repositories often have specialized indexes and reference tools that relate directly to their archival holdings.  When available, these can greatly streamline your research. Advice from the Princeton Guide to Library Research Some helpful advice from The Princeton Guide to Historical Research :  " Archival holdings are often needles in haystacks.


n Guide to Library Research Some helpful advice from The Princeton Guide to Historical Research :  " Archival holdings are often needles in haystacks.n Guide to Library Research Some helpful advice from The Princeton Guide to Historical Research :  " Archival holdings are often needles in haystacks.n Guide to Library Research Some helpful advice from The Princeton Guide to Historical Research :  " Archival holdings are often needles in haystacks.It is one thing to locate the papers of major participants in an event. But the letters of witnesses to that event, with vivid descriptions, may be scattered over many states. Databases of archives, such as WorldCat and ArchiveGrid, are helpful, but they cannot pick up every collection in every archive. Finding all the unpublished material relevant to a topic is therefore a research challenge in itself. Search every catalog you can find, and get help from a librarian or archivist. Read other scholars’ bibliographies. Identify prominent figures in your stories—politicians, activists, intellectuals—and see if they deposited papers somewhere. Eventually, as you become expert in a topic, you may get a sense of which individuals or institutions might have collected relevant material. " (p. 189) Schrag, Zachary M. “Archival Research.” In The Princeton Guide to Historical Research , 186–207. Princeton University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pdrrc9.12 .


Directories, Lists, National Digital Libraries, Regional Portals:
The online portals and archives listed here are a sampling of the resources that exist around the globe.

Directories & Lists

LibWeb - Libraries Around the World: Libraries from around the world arranged geographically.

National Archives Around the World: List from Wikipedia of national archives from around the world.

Gale Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers: International coverage.  Requires New York Public Library barcode and PIN to access.

National Digital Libraries & Regional Portals

African Online Digital Library: "AODL is an open access digital library of African cultural heritage materials created by Michigan State University in collaboration with museums, archives, scholars, and communities around the world."

Australia - National Archives: 100 years of Australian Government records, documenting the history of individuals, communities, and the nation.


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Australia - National Archives: 100 years of Australian Government records, documenting the history of individuals, communities, and the nation.Australia - Trove: Trove provides access to 14 billion digital items about Australia or of interest to the Australian community. Trove focuses on freely available digital content created by Australians and held in the collections of the National LIbrary of Australia and other Australian Libraries, Archives, Museums, Galleries, University, Research and community organisations. It contains books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and other materials.

Canada - Library & Archives: Includes publications, archival records, sound and audio-visual materials, photographs, artworks, and electronic documents of Canadian heritage.

Caribbean - Digital Library of the Caribbean: "The Digital Library of the Caribbean is a cooperative of partners within the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean that provides users with access to Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials held in archives, libraries, and private collections."


ibbean that provides users with access to Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials held in archives, libraries, and private collections."Early Caribbean Digital Archive: "[A]n open access collection of pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. ... The materials in the archive are primarily authored and published by Europeans, but the ECDA aims to use digital tools to "remix" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."

CARIBICA: The Caribbean Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives.

East Asia Digital Archive: A partnership between the National Library of Korea and the National Diet Library of Japan, the East Asia Digital Library is a portal site that offers East Asia’s cultural and academic digital resources.


nd the National Diet Library of Japan, the East Asia Digital Library is a portal site that offers East Asia’s cultural and academic digital resources.Endangered Archives Programme - British Library: "The EAP facilitates the digitisation of archives around the world that are in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration. ... Since 2004, the [EAP] has digitised over 12 million images and 35 thousand sound tracks. Archive types digitised ... include rare printed sources, manuscripts, visual materials, audio recordings."

Europe - Archives Portal Europe: Contains records for millions of archival items held in hundreds of repositories across Europe. Use search filters to find digitized items.

Europeana: Europeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europes museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections.

France - Calames: Online catalog of archives and manuscripts in French university and research libraries.

India - Archival Repositories: List from Wikipedia.


Calames: Online catalog of archives and manuscripts in French university and research libraries.

India - Archival Repositories: List from Wikipedia.India - Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute: Consists of 215 original titles, including 58 manuscript catalogs. Accessible via the Internet Archive.

International Institute of Social History: Over 4,000 archives, more than 1 million printed volumes and audio-visual items, with a thematic emphasis on social and emancipatory movements.

LACLI: LACLI is a repository of free online resources for Latin American, Caribbean, Latinx, and Iberian studies, including digital primary source collections, demographic data, and ebook libraries.

Latin American & Caribbean Digital Primary Resources: "[A] database of listings that provide links to open access digitized collections of primary sources that relate to Latin America and the Caribbean."

Latin American Network Information Center: From UT Austin. Includes lists of resources by country and holdings of Latin American and Caribbean collections in the U.S.


etwork Information Center: From UT Austin. Includes lists of resources by country and holdings of Latin American and Caribbean collections in the U.S.Literature & Art - World-Wide Directory of Repositories: Online directory from the International Council on Archives.

Middle East & Islamic Studies - Digital Collections Guide: A subject guide from Cornell that includes listings of manuscript and archival repositories, both digital and analog, along with other resources in libraries around the world.

Digitalnz - Digital New Zealand: 30+ million digital items from 300+ collections.

The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive: Over 200 Years of Palestinian life portrayed through photographs, documents, letters, diaries, publications, and audio & video recordings.  Browse over 360,000 items by topic or collection or search across the digital archive by keyword.

Research Resources - SHAFR: Selected resources for historical research from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).  Includes lists of archives and resources by region and subject.


rical research from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).  Includes lists of archives and resources by region and subject.Russia - ArcheoBiblioBase: ArcheoBiblioBase (ABB) is an internet directory and bibliographic information system for archives in the Russian Federation.

South Asia Open Archives (SAOA): A rich and growing OA collection of key historical and contemporary sources from and about South Asia, in English and other languages of the region. Contains hundreds of thousands of pages of books, journals, newspapers, census data, magazines, and documents, with particular focus on social & economic history, literature, women & gender, and caste & social structure.

Digital South Asia Library: A program of the University of Chicago and the Research Libraries Group, the Digital South Asia Library provides digital materials for reference and research on South Asia to scholars, public officials, business leaders, and other users.

United Kingdom - Archives Hub: Search across descriptions of archives, including links to digital content, held at over 390 institutions across the UK.


nited Kingdom - Archives Hub: Search across descriptions of archives, including links to digital content, held at over 390 institutions across the UK.United Kingdom - Discovery: More than 32 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives of the UK and more than 2,500 archives cross the country.

World Wide Diplomatic Archives Index: From the US Dept. of State's Office of the Historian.


Digitized Collections - Global Highlights:
The collections and digital projects included here are meant to illustrate the remarkable depth and variety of resources available from around the world. These are just a sampling to highlight the research possibilities that exist in freely available resources on a nearly infinite range of topics.

The Danish West-Indies: Sources of History: "This is where you can search in about 5 million image files of records from the Danish West Indies across the databases of the Danish National Archives. The 5 million image files of digitally scanned records are made up of 15,000 series of images and contain 130,000 transcribed entries. "

Digital Dante: Digital Dante, a venue for research and ideas on Dante from Columbia University, includes sections on the Divine Comedy; Intertextual Dante, a digital tool for visualizing references; image and sound galleries; a History and chronology of Dante, and original textual research.


textual Dante, a digital tool for visualizing references; image and sound galleries; a History and chronology of Dante, and original textual research.Early Caribbean Digital Archive: "[A]n open access collection of pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. Plantation slavery and settler colonialism are defining aspects of the early Caribbean—both sit at the origin of the modern capitalist world. The texts and images collected here tell the story of European imperial domination, and of the enslaved African and Indigenous American people whose lives, labor, and land shaped the culture and development of the Atlantic world. The materials in the archive are primarily authored and published by Europeans, but the ECDA aims to use digital tools to "remix" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."


x" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive: This site currently includes over 10 million scanned images of documents from the National Police Historical Archive. This digital archive mirrors and extends the physical archive that remains preserved in Guatemala as an important historical patrimony of the Guatemalan people.

IMIRCE  The Kerby A. Miller Collection of Irish Emigrant Letters and Memoirs from North America: "IMIRCE provides access to thousands of letters, memoirs and other documents composed by Irish emigrants to North America from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries."


usands of letters, memoirs and other documents composed by Irish emigrants to North America from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries."Manar al-Athar: The Manar al-Athar, an open-access photo-archive based at the University of Oxford, aims to provide high resolution, searchable images, freely-downloadable for teaching, research, heritage projects, and publication. It covers buildings and art in the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule (e.g. Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa), from ca. 300 BC to the present, but especially Roman, late antique, and early Islamic art, architecture, and sacred sites.

Medieval Murder Maps - London, York, and Oxford: Discover the murders, sudden deaths, sanctuary churches, and prisons of three thriving medieval cities.

Old Bailey Proceedings (London), 1674-1913: "A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."


est body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."Shakespeare Documented: "An online exhibition documenting Shakespeare in his own time."

World Digital Library: The WDL made available primary materials from all countries and cultures. The collection was transferred to the Library of Congress in 2021 where it remains as a searchable resource showing the diversity of the world’s cultures through the contributions of hundreds of organizations.

Other Sources: Consult the websites of libraries and archival repositories to discover digital editions of library holdings.


Analog vs. Digital:
Before diving in to digitized sources, it is important to remember that although there are many millions of digitized primary sources accessible online, the vast majority of unpublished archival material that exists in libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies around the world has not been digitized and is not available online. The digitized sources at a given repository will usually represent just a fraction of their holdings on a topic.  Digitized sources are exceedingly convenient and readily accessible but there may be equally valuable resources for your project that are only available on paper in folders and boxes in repositories.


Finding Digitized Materials:
There are many places to search for digitized primary sources.  These include large-scale digital portals, the websites of research libraries, archives, and museums, the websites of regional and subject collaborations, government archives websites, international digital portals, library subscription databases, and on the open web. Individual digitized items can lead you back to the digital or analog collections that contain them and further back to the repositories where the collections are held, allowing you to contextualize the sources you find. One key point to note is that the digital facsimiles you discover may represent just a fraction of the existing material on your topic in a repository.


Library Databases:
Library suscription databases contain primary sources in a wide variety of formats including manuscripts and archives, historical newspapers and periodicals, laws, legislation, legal documents, pamphlets, broadsides, books, printed ephemera, letters, diaries, oral histories, audio, video, images, maps, speeches, interviews, government documents, data, underground comics, graphic novels, and more. In many cases, the databases were produced by digitizing previously existing microfilm. The original microfilm reels might be available to borrow via interlibrary loan if we do not have access to the subscription database at the GC.  Some microfilmed collections are also available in the Internet Archive.


ibrary loan if we do not have access to the subscription database at the GC.  Some microfilmed collections are also available in the Internet Archive.Primary Document Databases @ the GC: The Graduate Center Library subscribes to dozens of databases containing primary sources in a wide variety of formats. Highlights iclude the Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, 16th to 20th Century; Ethnographic Video Online; and the Women's Studies Archive.  Find these databases and others by selecting the filters for Archival Collections , Primary Source Collections and/or Newspapers on our A-Z List.


ve.  Find these databases and others by selecting the filters for Archival Collections , Primary Source Collections and/or Newspapers on our A-Z List.NYPL Databases: The NYPL subscribes to a number of databases containing digitized archival collections from other institutions in addition to their own digitized holdings. Search for databases by Title or Keyword on the NYPL’s Articles & Databases page.  Highlights include ACLU American Civil Liberties Union Papers; African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress; Archives of Sexuality and Gender; Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress; Indigenous Peoples: North America; the NAACP Papers; Testaments to the Holocaust; U.S. Relations with the Vatican and the Holocaust; Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture; and the Smithsonian Collections Online database World's Fairs and Expositions: Visions of Tomorrow.  Note that NYPL subscription resources require an NYPL library card and PIN for remote access and some NYPL databases are accessible on-site only.


Online Portals:
Online portals are among best ways to discover digital content.  And they can help you find analog materials as well.  These platforms make it possible to search in one place for primary sources related to a particular person, subject, region, or format that are scattered across multiple institutions. When search results turn up individual items, be sure to click on links to explore the full collections they belong to, and trace further back to the holding repository. Browse results by contributing institution, when possible, and visit the websites of those institutions to look for other materials on your topic.  Many archival repositories have tools that let you search across collections and also limit results to digitized materials.  Keep in mind that the digital items that turn up in online portals may represent just a fraction of the materials a library holds on a topic.


erials.  Keep in mind that the digital items that turn up in online portals may represent just a fraction of the materials a library holds on a topic.DPLA: Digital Public Library of America: Contains over 51 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from libraries, archives, and museums across the U.S.  Search or browse by topic or contributor, and explore primary source sets and online exhibitions.

Internet Archive: The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form with a mission to provide universal access to all knowledge. The archive contains tens of millions of books and texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs, and 625 billion web pages.


owledge. The archive contains tens of millions of books and texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs, and 625 billion web pages.Google: Add library keywords to your search to find digitized collections.  For example, try a search like this: "Civil Rights” AND (digital or digitized) AND (library OR collection OR archive OR manuscripts) .  Google can be helpful for finding collections that may not turn up in searches of databases like WorldCat and ArchiveGrid and may may turn up library research guides and other helpful reference tools that can streamline your research.

Smithsonian Open Access: Search over 4.9 million 2D and 3D open access digital items, including images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo. Filter search results by museum, topic, date range, resource type, place, or group.

Digital Library Directory: An online directory of 750+ digital library sources from around the globe. Outdated in spots, but useful for identifying repositories and collections to explore.


irectory of 750+ digital library sources from around the globe. Outdated in spots, but useful for identifying repositories and collections to explore.Library & Archival Exhibitions on the Web: A list of online exhibitions from libraries, archives, and historical societies maintained by the Smithsonian. Searchable by keyword, title, and  sponsoring institution. Great for finding leads to primary sources.


Subject-Based Portals & Collections:
Listed below are just a few of the extraordinary open access subject-based digital collections and collaborations available online. Find similar resources by visiting the websites of libraries that cover your subject area or trying a Google search formatted like the examples below. "indigenous peoples" AND (digital OR digitized) AND (library OR collection OR archive) physics AND (digital OR digitized) AND (library OR collection OR archive) anthropology AND (digital OR digitized) AND (library OR collection OR archive)

African American History - Umbra Search: Umbra Search for African American History brings together more than 800,000 digitized items from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the country.

Biodiversity Heritage Library: "[T]he world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. ... [F]ree access to hundreds of thousands of volumes, comprising over 58 million pages, from the 15th-21st centuries."


rsity literature and archives. ... [F]ree access to hundreds of thousands of volumes, comprising over 58 million pages, from the 15th-21st centuries."Black Women's Suffrage - DPLA: "[A] collaborative project to provide digital access to materials documenting the roles and experiences of Black Women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and, more broadly, women’s rights, voting rights, and civic activism between the 1850s and 1960.  ...  [Includes] photographs, correspondence, speeches, event programs, publications, oral histories, and other artifacts."

Civil Rights Digital Library: "[T]he most ambitious and comprehensive initiative to date to deliver educational content on the Civil Rights Movement via the Web" through: a Digital Video Archive of 30 hours of historical film coverage, a Civil Rights Portal drawing on the holdings of libraries across the nation, and Instructional Materials.


ve of 30 hours of historical film coverage, a Civil Rights Portal drawing on the holdings of libraries across the nation, and Instructional Materials.Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative: "By making the form and content of cuneiform texts available online, the CDLI is opening pathways to the rich historical tradition of the ancient Middle East. In close collaboration with researchers, museums and an engaged public, the project seeks to unharness the extraordinary content of these earliest witnesses to our shared world heritage."

Digital Scriptorium: "[A] growing consortium of American libraries and museums committed to free online access to their collections of pre-modern manuscripts."

Digital Transgender Archive: The purpose of the DTA "is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world."

Medical Heritage Library: "[A] digital curation collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine."


uration collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine."Native Northeast Portal: The Native Northeast Portal "represents a scholarly critical edition of New England Native American primary source materials gathered ...  from ... partner institutions into one robust virtual collection, where the items are digitized, transcribed, annotated, and edited to the highest academic standards and then made freely available over the Internet, using open-source software."

New Netherland Institute: Exploring America's Dutch Heritage: Digitized versions of translations and transcriptions of documents relating to New Netherland. Written in an archaic hand, these seventeenth-century documents were damaged by fire and water, but they are our best source of knowledge about the former Dutch colony.

North America Manuscripts - Worlds of Change at Harvard Library: "A collection of more than 700,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America."


Digital Libraries / Regional Portals / Digitized Collections:
The following research libraries have notable digital collections. This list is just a sampling of the remarkable resources you can find online. Be aware that in most every case, the digitized items available represent only a small fraction of a library's holdings. To find digitized primary sources for your own research project, visit the websites of libraries that collect materials in your subject area.  And be sure search across collections when possible.  You may also be able to limit results to digitized materials if the option is available.

American Museum of Natural History - Anthropology: "Over 250,000 ethnographic and archaeological objects representing the peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific Islands have been digitally imaged and are accessible online."


objects representing the peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific Islands have been digitally imaged and are accessible online."American Museum of Natural History - Virtual Library: Includes Digital Special Collections, Digitized Scientific Manuscripts, Field Notes, scientific publications from the museum's 150 year history, including The Anthropological Papers , Novitates , and The Bulletin

Archives of American Art: "The Archives of American Art is the world’s preeminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America."

Bodleian Library - Digital Bodleian: Over a million images of rare books, manuscripts, and other treasures from the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford college libraries.


ry - Digital Bodleian: Over a million images of rare books, manuscripts, and other treasures from the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford college libraries.Centro - Center for Puerto Rican Studies - Hunter College: "Centro is a research institute that is dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States and that produces and disseminates relevant interdisciplinary research. Centro also collects, preserves, and provides access to library resources documenting Puerto Rican history and culture. We seek to link scholarship to social action and policy debates and to contribute to the betterment of our community and enrichment of Puerto Rican studies."

CUNY Digital History Archive: "[A]n open, digital public archive and portal that gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of materials related to the history of the City University of New York (CUNY). "

Harvard Digital Collections: "[F]ree free, public access to over 6 million objects digitized from our collections - from ancient art to modern manuscripts and audio visual materials."


ree free, public access to over 6 million objects digitized from our collections - from ancient art to modern manuscripts and audio visual materials."John Carter Brown Library: High resolution images from the library's archive of early American images, maps, and political cartoons are available through the JCB's Luna database and scans of over 15,000 full books are available via the Internet Archive.

The Library Company of Philadelphia: Digitized manuscripts, photographs, art, music, and other sources relating to U.S. history.

Library of Congress Digital Collections: "The collection of more than 168 million items includes more than 39 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 72 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings."  Among these holdings are 395 digitized collections.

Library of Congress Collections with Manuscripts: Digitized manuscript collections covering a broad range of subjects.


are 395 digitized collections.

Library of Congress Collections with Manuscripts: Digitized manuscript collections covering a broad range of subjects.Metropolitan Museum of Art - Watson Library Digital: Rare materials digitized from the collections, including treatises on art and architecture, early travel books, archaeological studies, rare collection catalogs, early trade catalogs, artists’ manuals and handbooks, complete runs of seminal journals, fencing books, scrapbooks, fine bindings, and examples of fine printing.

National Library of Medicine Digital Collections: "[A] free online repository of biomedical resources including books, manuscripts, still images, videos, and maps. The content in Digital Collections is freely available worldwide and, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich historical resources, as well as select modern resources."


e indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich historical resources, as well as select modern resources."National Museum of Natural History - Anthropology Dept.: "Research in the Department of Anthropology spans from the emergence of our earliest ancestors to the ways communities sustain their cultures in today’s globalized societies.  The collections ... are a vast and unparalleled resource for inquiry into the cultures, arts, and technologies of the world's peoples, from deep in prehistory to the present day."

New-York Historical Society Digital Collections: "The New-York Historical Society’s growing digital library now includes thousands of photographs of New York City, Revolutionary Era maps, manuscripts, and broadsides, Civil War materials, manuscripts relating to slavery and African American history, and numerous other historical resources from the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library as well as highlights from several Museum collections."


can history, and numerous other historical resources from the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library as well as highlights from several Museum collections."New York Public Library Archives & Manuscript Division: The Division holds over 31,000 linear feet of manuscripts and archives in over 5,700 collections. More than 560,000 items have been digitized.

New York Public Library Digital Collections: Currently contains more than 900,000 images.  "This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more."

Ransom Center Digital Collections: Digital "collections represent just a sample of the Ransom Center's diverse holdings in literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts."

Schomburg Center, NYPL - Digital Schomburg: Amazing resource containing "exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora."


nts, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora."Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives: Access over 26 million descriptions of personal papers, manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, films, works of art and organizational records.

Smithsonian Libraries - Digital Library: Includes books, drawings, photos, indexes to vertical files of artists, trade catalogs, and ephemera, as well as fascinating digital exhibitions covering a wide range of topics; and an index of all the physical exhibitions that the Smithsonian Libraries has produced over the years.

Tulane University Digital Library: "[R]are and unique collections in areas such as Latin American studies, jazz, New Orleans and Louisiana history and architecture..."


Digital Library: "[R]are and unique collections in areas such as Latin American studies, jazz, New Orleans and Louisiana history and architecture..."UCLA Library Digital Collections: "The UCLA Digital Library Program (DLP) serves as the catalyst for the creation, management, and delivery of digital content in support of the UCLA Library mission and goals. The Program provides for the storage and dissemination of digital objects, including text, images, audio, and video in their various digital manifestations and combinations."

University of Michigan - Clement's Library: Archival collections, images, and public domain books.

Wisconsin Historical Society: "The Society's world-class collections contain an extraordinary range of artifacts and information about American history, from the remote archaeological past to current events."

Yale University Digital Collections: The Beinecke Library has digitized more than a million images of collection material, but these represent only a fraction of total collections material on-site.


ke Library has digitized more than a million images of collection material, but these represent only a fraction of total collections material on-site.The collections and digital humanities projects included here are meant to illustrate the remarkable depth and variety of resources available freely available online. These are just a sampling to highlight the research possibilities that exist in freely available resources on a nearly infinite range of topics.

American Prison Writing Archive: "The American Prison Writing Archive evolved from a book project completed in 2014 with the publication of Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America , the largest collection to date of non-fiction writing by currently incarcerated Americans writing about their experience inside."

BAM Archives - Brooklyn Academy of Music: "The BAM Hamm Archives tell the story of the 150+ year history of BAM, and of the communities—civic and artistic—that built the institution."


f Music: "The BAM Hamm Archives tell the story of the 150+ year history of BAM, and of the communities—civic and artistic—that built the institution."Criminal Trial Transcripts of NY County Collection (1883-1927): "Selected transcripts from the Lloyd Sealy Library's Trial Transcripts of the County of New York (1883-1927) collection. ... Consists of the verbatim typewritten proceedings of 3,326 court cases, held in various courts of New York County, which included Manhattan and the Bronx until 1914. Not all trial transcripts have been digitized."

CUNY Digital History Archive: "[A]n open, digital public archive and portal that gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of materials related to the history of the City University of New York (CUNY). "

The Danish West-Indies: Sources of History: "This is where you can search in about 5 million image files of records from the Danish West Indies across the databases of the Danish National Archives. The 5 million image files of digitally scanned records are made up of 15,000 series of images and contain 130,000 transcribed entries. "


nal Archives. The 5 million image files of digitally scanned records are made up of 15,000 series of images and contain 130,000 transcribed entries. "Digital Dante: Digital Dante, a venue for research and ideas on Dante from Columbia University, includes sections on the Divine Comedy; Intertextual Dante, a digital tool for visualizing references; image and sound galleries; a History and chronology of Dante, and original textual research.

Digital Paxton: A Digital Archive and Critical Edition of the Paxton Pamphlet War: "[I]nclude[s] primary source materials [on the 1763 massacre in colonial Pennsylvania] from ... 18 different archives, research libraries, and cultural institutions; a dozen contextual essays from leading historians and literary scholars; and educational materials from secondary and post-secondary educators."

Digital Thoreau: Digital Thoreau provides tools to illuminate Thoreau’s creative process and facilitate thoughtful conversation about his words and ideas.


tal Thoreau: Digital Thoreau provides tools to illuminate Thoreau’s creative process and facilitate thoughtful conversation about his words and ideas.Documenting the American South: A digital publishing initiative from the University Library at UNC Chapel Hill "that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs."


culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs."Early Caribbean Digital Archive: "[A]n open access collection of pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. Plantation slavery and settler colonialism are defining aspects of the early Caribbean—both sit at the origin of the modern capitalist world. The texts and images collected here tell the story of European imperial domination, and of the enslaved African and Indigenous American people whose lives, labor, and land shaped the culture and development of the Atlantic world. The materials in the archive are primarily authored and published by Europeans, but the ECDA aims to use digital tools to "remix" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."


x" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."Emma Goldman Papers: "Since 1980, the Emma Goldman Papers Project at UCB has collected, organized, and edited tens of thousands of documents from around the world by and about Emma Goldman (1869-1940), a leading figure in American anarchism, feminism, and radicalism."

Freedom Summer Project: A stellar research site offering over 40,000 pages from the Wisconsin Historical Society's manuscript collections documenting the Civil Rights movement and the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964.

Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive: This site currently includes over 10 million scanned images of documents from the National Police Historical Archive. This digital archive mirrors and extends the physical archive that remains preserved in Guatemala as an important historical patrimony of the Guatemalan people.


al archive mirrors and extends the physical archive that remains preserved in Guatemala as an important historical patrimony of the Guatemalan people.Manar al-Athar: The Manar al-Athar, an open-access photo-archive based at the University of Oxford, aims to provide high resolution, searchable images, freely-downloadable for teaching, research, heritage projects, and publication. It covers buildings and art in the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule (e.g. Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa), from ca. 300 BC to the present, but especially Roman, late antique, and early Islamic art, architecture, and sacred sites.

Media History Digital Library: "[A] free online resource featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound ... We scan works that are no longer protected by copyright or that have been licensed to us to share with you."

Museum of Modern Art - Exhibition History: "Exhibitions from [MOMA's] founding in 1929 to the present are available online. These pages are updated continually. "


dern Art - Exhibition History: "Exhibitions from [MOMA's] founding in 1929 to the present are available online. These pages are updated continually. "New Amsterdam Stories: "A Digital Dig to Link 17th-Century Records Between Amsterdam and New York City."

New York Public Radio Archives: "Established in the year 2000, the ... [NYPRA]  provides a central repository for more than 70,000 audio recordings on nearly every format (except cylinder and wire), photographs, memorabilia, reports, news items, program guides, institutional records, and promotional materials."

98 Acres in Albany: "Drawing on government documents, oral histories, and local reporting, this blog tells the stories of the 98 acres seized by the State, before demolition and during redevelopment. It is the rough draft for a book and part of a larger project, exploring how urban renewal changed one American city."

Old Bailey Proceedings (London), 1674-1913: "A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."


est body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."Project Stand: Student Activism Now Documented: Project Stand brings together information about student activism archives from colleges and universities.

Rosa Parks Papers: The collection contains approximately 7,500 items in the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division and 2,500 photographs in the Prints and Photographs Division and documents Parks's "private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. "

Shakespeare Documented: "An online exhibition documenting Shakespeare in his own time."


c activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. "

Shakespeare Documented: "An online exhibition documenting Shakespeare in his own time."SNCC DIgital Gateway: A documentary website that tells the story of how young activists in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) “united with local people in the Deep South to build a grassroots movement for change that empowered the Black community and transformed the nation.”  It links to documents, photographs, oral history interviews, and audiovisual material hosted in digital collections at repositories across the country; includes organizational records of SNCC and profiles of individuals involved with SNCC; describes key events; and much more.

Staten Island Museum: Collections contain natural science specimens, archival records, and works of art and design, which represent Staten Island’s natural and cultural history across time.  The Internet Archive hosts full documents, publications, journals and maps from the SIM's archival collections.


ral and cultural history across time.  The Internet Archive hosts full documents, publications, journals and maps from the SIM's archival collections.Trials - Famous Trials: "The Web's most visited and most comprehensive collection of essays, images, maps, primary documents, links, and other materials pertaining to sixty-six of the most famous trials of all time, from Socrates to Simpson."

UN Archives Geneva: The UN Archives Geneva platform gives access to the fonds and collections managed by the United Nations Library and Archives in Geneva, including the archives of the United Nations in Geneva, the League of Nations (1919-1946), international peace movements (from 1870), and private papers.

Urban Archive: A web app that merges location data with the digital collections of museums and libraries, to make it easy to explore the history of urban environments.  Browse by city (New York City; Albany, NY; Newburgh, NY; Ogden, UT; and Cali, Columbia) or search across the platform to find to find photos, blog posts, and stories, and link back to the source collections.


Ogden, UT; and Cali, Columbia) or search across the platform to find to find photos, blog posts, and stories, and link back to the source collections.The Harry Watkins Diary Digital Edition: "Hardworking actor, playwright, and stage manager Harry Watkins (1825–94) was a prolific diarist. For fifteen years (1845–60), Watkins regularly recorded the plays he saw, the roles he performed, the books he read, and his impressions of current events.  ... His is the only known diary of substantial length and scope written by a U.S. actor before the Civil War—making Watkins, essentially, the antebellum equivalent of Samuel Pepys."

What America Ate: "Preserving America's Culinary History from the Great Depression."  Digital archive of the 1930's America Eats project that chronicled eating habits by region.  Also includes digitized community cookbooks, advertisements, pamphlets, and packing from the food industry.

Other Sources: Consult the websites of libraries and archival repositories to discover digital editions of library holdings.


dustry.

Other Sources: Consult the websites of libraries and archival repositories to discover digital editions of library holdings.Grant funding has made possible much of the digitizing that has been undertaken in libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies. Repositories frequently collaborate on projects and then share their digitized holdings together in regional portals. Following are a few examples of some of the excellent resources that are available.  Look for repositories where your subject is based to find digitized collections.  And check the International Resources section for regional portals from across the globe. Note that while extremely helpful, regional portals, consortiums, and collaborative sites are not comprehensive and likely do not include all possibly related repositories.  Be certain to search for archives, libraries, archival materials, and other primary sources independently of these handy sites.


related repositories.  Be certain to search for archives, libraries, archival materials, and other primary sources independently of these handy sites.State Digital Resources - Library of Congress Guides: Among the excellent research guides compiled by the Library of Congress are their U.S. state and territory guides.  See both the General Resources and Local History & Genealogy guides to find digital collections at the LC, and links to digitized exhibitions, historic newspapers, vital records, courthouse records, maps, directories, bibliographies and guides, and other resources.  Particularly useful are the listings of external websites and databases for finding libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies in each state with notable digital and analog collections.

Archives West (ID, MT, OR, UT, WA, WY): Archives West provides access to descriptions of primary sources in the western United States, including correspondence, diaries or photographs. Digital reproductions of the materials are available in some cases.


es in the western United States, including correspondence, diaries or photographs. Digital reproductions of the materials are available in some cases.Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York: DCMNY provides online access to digital collections of photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, catalogues, and memorabilia and ephemera from libraries, archives, museums and historical societies located in and around New York City.

Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative: Search the finding aids for archival collections held in libraries, archives, and cultural heritage organizations across New York state.  Browse a list of repositories that contribute finding aids to the database.

New York Heritage Digital Collections: "Includes a broad range of historical, scholarly, and cultural materials held in libraries, museums, and archives throughout the state. Collection items include photographs, letters, diaries, directories, maps, books, and more."


in libraries, museums, and archives throughout the state. Collection items include photographs, letters, diaries, directories, maps, books, and more."Online Archive of California: "[P]rovides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 ... libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California." Includes 20,000 online collection guides and more than 220,000 digitized images and documents.


Why Digitize This But Not That?:


Why Digitize This But Not That?:Why Digitize This But Not That?:There are many reasons why some materials might be digitized while others might not: Some items, like documents in national archives, may be considered to have high research value for a wide audience. Or collections might be in high demand locally and the originals could be at risk of damage from over-use. Collections that belonged to a well-known person or organization might be deemed important because of their provenance . Or they might be visually compelling . Photographs and other images are more dazzling than handwritten documents. Another common reason for digitizing is preservation .  When documents are too fragile to use, they might be microfilmed and/or digitized to preserve access to the information. Sometimes materials are given to a library along with funds to process and digitize them.  And sometimes repositories acquire grant funding on their own or in collaboration with other institutions to digitize collections they want to make more widely available.


tories acquire grant funding on their own or in collaboration with other institutions to digitize collections they want to make more widely available.tories acquire grant funding on their own or in collaboration with other institutions to digitize collections they want to make more widely available.tories acquire grant funding on their own or in collaboration with other institutions to digitize collections they want to make more widely available.There can be a commercial motive too. In analog times, collections were microfilmed for preservation and/or to extend access. Today, vendors digitize previously microfilmed archival collections and historical periodicals, add bells and whistles, and sell them to libraries in subscription databases. Read more about the topic on the Peel Art Gallery Museum & Archive's blog: Why Don't Archivists Digitize Everything?


Digitized Collections - A Few Highlights:
The collections and digital projects included here are meant to illustrate the remarkable depth and variety of resources available. These are just a sampling to highlight the research possibilities that exist in freely available resources on a nearly infinite range of topics.

American Prison Writing Archive: "The American Prison Writing Archive evolved from a book project completed in 2014 with the publication of Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America , the largest collection to date of non-fiction writing by currently incarcerated Americans writing about their experience inside."

BAM Archives - Brooklyn Academy of Music: "The BAM Hamm Archives tell the story of the 150+ year history of BAM, and of the communities—civic and artistic—that built the institution."


f Music: "The BAM Hamm Archives tell the story of the 150+ year history of BAM, and of the communities—civic and artistic—that built the institution."Criminal Trial Transcripts of NY County Collection (1883-1927): "Selected transcripts from the Lloyd Sealy Library's Trial Transcripts of the County of New York (1883-1927) collection. ... Consists of the verbatim typewritten proceedings of 3,326 court cases, held in various courts of New York County, which included Manhattan and the Bronx until 1914. Not all trial transcripts have been digitized."

CUNY Digital History Archive: "[a]n open, digital public archive and portal that gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of materials related to the history of the City University of New York (CUNY). "

The Danish West-Indies: Sources of History: "This is where you can search in about 5 million image files of records from the Danish West Indies across the databases of the Danish National Archives. The 5 million image files of digitally scanned records are made up of 15,000 series of images and contain 130,000 transcribed entries. "


nal Archives. The 5 million image files of digitally scanned records are made up of 15,000 series of images and contain 130,000 transcribed entries. "Digital Dante: Digital Dante, a venue for research and ideas on Dante from Columbia University, includes sections on the Divine Comedy; Intertextual Dante, a digital tool for visualizing references; image and sound galleries; a History and chronology of Dante, and original textual research.

Digital Paxton: A Digital Archive and Critical Edition of the Paxton Pamphlet War: "[I]nclude[s] primary source materials [on the 1763 massacre in colonial Pennsylvania] from ... 18 different archives, research libraries, and cultural institutions; a dozen contextual essays from leading historians and literary scholars; and educational materials from secondary and post-secondary educators."

Digital Thoreau: Digital Thoreau provides tools to illuminate Thoreau’s creative process and facilitate thoughtful conversation about his words and ideas.


tal Thoreau: Digital Thoreau provides tools to illuminate Thoreau’s creative process and facilitate thoughtful conversation about his words and ideas.Documenting the American South: A digital publishing initiative from the University Library at UNC Chapel Hill "that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs."


culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs."Early Caribbean Digital Archive: "[A]n open access collection of pre-twentieth-century Caribbean texts, maps, and images. Texts include travel narratives, novels, poetry, natural histories, and diaries that have not been brought together before as a single collection focused on the Caribbean. Plantation slavery and settler colonialism are defining aspects of the early Caribbean—both sit at the origin of the modern capitalist world. The texts and images collected here tell the story of European imperial domination, and of the enslaved African and Indigenous American people whose lives, labor, and land shaped the culture and development of the Atlantic world. The materials in the archive are primarily authored and published by Europeans, but the ECDA aims to use digital tools to "remix" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."


x" the archive and foreground the centrality and creativity of enslaved and free African, Afro-creole, and Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean world."Freedom Summer Project: A stellar research site offering over 40,000 pages from the Wisconsin Historical Society's manuscript collections documenting the Civil Rights movement and the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964.

Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive: This site currently includes over 10 million scanned images of documents from the National Police Historical Archive. This digital archive mirrors and extends the physical archive that remains preserved in Guatemala as an important historical patrimony of the Guatemalan people.


al archive mirrors and extends the physical archive that remains preserved in Guatemala as an important historical patrimony of the Guatemalan people.Manar al-Athar: The Manar al-Athar, an open-access photo-archive based at the University of Oxford, aims to provide high resolution, searchable images, freely-downloadable for teaching, research, heritage projects, and publication. It covers buildings and art in the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule (e.g. Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa), from ca. 300 BC to the present, but especially Roman, late antique, and early Islamic art, architecture, and sacred sites.

Media History Digital Library: "[A] free online resource featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound ... We scan works that are no longer protected by copyright or that have been licensed to us to share with you."

Museum of Modern Art - Exhibition History: "Exhibitions from [MOMA's] founding in 1929 to the present are available online. These pages are updated continually. "


dern Art - Exhibition History: "Exhibitions from [MOMA's] founding in 1929 to the present are available online. These pages are updated continually. "New Amsterdam Stories: "A Digital Dig to Link 17th-Century Records Between Amsterdam and New York City."

New York Public Radio Archives: "Established in the year 2000, the ... [NYPRA]  provides a central repository for more than 70,000 audio recordings on nearly every format (except cylinder and wire), photographs, memorabilia, reports, news items, program guides, institutional records, and promotional materials."

Old Bailey Proceedings (London), 1674-1913: "A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."

Project Stand: Student Activism Now Documented: Project Stand brings together information about student activism archives from colleges and universities.


ject Stand: Student Activism Now Documented: Project Stand brings together information about student activism archives from colleges and universities.Rosa Parks Papers: The collection contains approximately 7,500 items in the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division and 2,500 photographs in the Prints and Photographs Division and documents Parks's "private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. "

Shakespeare Documented: "An online exhibition documenting Shakespeare in his own time."

Trials - Famous Trials: "The Web's most visited and most comprehensive collection of essays, images, maps, primary documents, links, and other materials pertaining to sixty-six of the most famous trials of all time, from Socrates to Simpson."


images, maps, primary documents, links, and other materials pertaining to sixty-six of the most famous trials of all time, from Socrates to Simpson."The Harry Watkins Diary Digital Edition: "Hardworking actor, playwright, and stage manager Harry Watkins (1825–94) was a prolific diarist. For fifteen years (1845–60), Watkins regularly recorded the plays he saw, the roles he performed, the books he read, and his impressions of current events.  ... His is the only known diary of substantial length and scope written by a U.S. actor before the Civil War—making Watkins, essentially, the antebellum equivalent of Samuel Pepys."

What America Ate: "Preserving America's Culinary History from the Great Depression."  Digital archive of the 1930's America Eats project that chronicled eating habits by region.  Also includes digitized community cookbooks, advertisements, pamphlets, and packing from the food industry.

Other Sources: Consult the websites of libraries and archival repositories to discover digital editions of library holdings.


Research Libraries & Archives with Digitized Collections:
The following research libraries have notable digital collections. This list is just a sampling of the remarkable resources you can find online. Be aware that in most every case, the digitized items available represent only a small fraction of a library's holdings. To find digitized primary sources for your own research project, visit the websites of libraries that collect materials in your subject area.  And be sure search across collections when possible and then limit results to digitized materials, if the option is available.

American Museum of Natural History - Anthropology: "Over 250,000 ethnographic and archaeological objects representing the peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific Islands have been digitally imaged and are accessible online."


objects representing the peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific Islands have been digitally imaged and are accessible online."American Museum of Natural History - Virtual Library: Includes Digital Special Collections, Digitized Scientific Manuscripts, Field Notes, scientific publications from the museum's 150 year history, including The Anthropological Papers , Novitates , and The Bulletin

Archives of American Art: "The Archives of American Art is the world’s preeminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America."

Bodleian Library - Digital Bodleian: Over a million images of rare books, manuscripts, and other treasures from the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford college libraries.


ry - Digital Bodleian: Over a million images of rare books, manuscripts, and other treasures from the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford college libraries.Centro - Center for Puerto Rican Studies - Hunter College: "Centro is a research institute that is dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States and that produces and disseminates relevant interdisciplinary research. Centro also collects, preserves, and provides access to library resources documenting Puerto Rican history and culture. We seek to link scholarship to social action and policy debates and to contribute to the betterment of our community and enrichment of Puerto Rican studies."

CUNY Digital History Archive: "[A]n open, digital public archive and portal that gives the CUNY community and the broader public online access to a range of materials related to the history of the City University of New York (CUNY). "

Harvard Digital Collections: "[F]ree free, public access to over 6 million objects digitized from our collections - from ancient art to modern manuscripts and audio visual materials."


ree free, public access to over 6 million objects digitized from our collections - from ancient art to modern manuscripts and audio visual materials."John Carter Brown Library: High resolution images from the library's archive of early American images, maps, and political cartoons are available through the JCB's Luna database and scans of over 15,000 full books are available via the Internet Archive.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice - Digital Collections: "The Digital Collections provide access to hundreds of images and documents digitized from the unique items in the Lloyd Sealy Library Special Collections. These materials are freely available to the public for learning, teaching, and research. The materials in our Digital Collections are especially well-suited for historical research of criminal justice, 20th- and 21st-century New York, the New York Police Department, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice itself."

The Library Company of Philadelphia: Digitized manuscripts, photographs, art, music, and other sources relating to U.S. history.


nal Justice itself."

The Library Company of Philadelphia: Digitized manuscripts, photographs, art, music, and other sources relating to U.S. history.Library of Congress Digital Collections: "The collection of more than 168 million items includes more than 39 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 72 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings."  Among these holdings are 395 digitized collections.

Library of Congress Collections with Manuscripts: Digitized manuscript collections covering a broad range of subjects.

Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey: The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the U.S. and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes.


ering, and landscape design in the U.S. and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes.Metropolitan Museum of Art - Watson Library Digital: Rare materials digitized from the collections, including treatises on art and architecture, early travel books, archaeological studies, rare collection catalogs, early trade catalogs, artists’ manuals and handbooks, complete runs of seminal journals, fencing books, scrapbooks, fine bindings, and examples of fine printing.

National Library of Medicine Digital Collections: "[A] free online repository of biomedical resources including books, manuscripts, still images, videos, and maps. The content in Digital Collections is freely available worldwide and, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich historical resources, as well as select modern resources."


e indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich historical resources, as well as select modern resources."National Museum of Natural History - Anthropology Dept.: "Research in the Department of Anthropology spans from the emergence of our earliest ancestors to the ways communities sustain their cultures in today’s globalized societies.  The collections ... are a vast and unparalleled resource for inquiry into the cultures, arts, and technologies of the world's peoples, from deep in prehistory to the present day."

New-York Historical Society Digital Collections: "The New-York Historical Society’s growing digital library now includes thousands of photographs of New York City, Revolutionary Era maps, manuscripts, and broadsides, Civil War materials, manuscripts relating to slavery and African American history, and numerous other historical resources from the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library as well as highlights from several Museum collections."


can history, and numerous other historical resources from the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library as well as highlights from several Museum collections."New York Public Library Archives & Manuscript Division: The Division holds over 31,000 linear feet of manuscripts and archives in over 5,700 collections. More than 560,000 items have been digitized.

New York Public Library Digital Collections: Currently contains more than 900,000 images.  "This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more."

Ransom Center Digital Collections: Digital "collections represent just a sample of the Ransom Center's diverse holdings in literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts."

Schomburg Center, NYPL - Digital Schomburg: Amazing resource containing "exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora."


nts, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora."Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives: Access over 26 million descriptions of personal papers, manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, films, works of art and organizational records.

Smithsonian Libraries - Digital Library: Includes books, drawings, photos, indexes to vertical files of artists, trade catalogs, and ephemera, as well as fascinating digital exhibitions covering a wide range of topics; and an index of all the physical exhibitions that the Smithsonian Libraries has produced over the years.

Tulane University Digital Library: "[R]are and unique collections in areas such as Latin American studies, jazz, New Orleans and Louisiana history and architecture..."


Digital Library: "[R]are and unique collections in areas such as Latin American studies, jazz, New Orleans and Louisiana history and architecture..."UCLA Libary Digital Collections: "The UCLA Digital Library Program (DLP) serves as the catalyst for the creation, management, and delivery of digital content in support of the UCLA Library mission and goals. The Program provides for the storage and dissemination of digital objects, including text, images, audio, and video in their various digital manifestations and combinations."

University of Michigan - Clement's Library: Archival collections, images, and public domain books.

University of Washington Digital Collections: Includes photographs, maps, newspapers, posters and other media from the University of Washington Libraries. Subjects covered include Alaska and the Yukon, Architecture, Klondike and Nome Gold Rushes, Politics and Labor, Science and Engineering, and more.

Wisconsin Historical Society: "The Society's world-class collections contain an extraordinary range of artifacts and information about American history, from the remote archaeological past to current events."


ollections contain an extraordinary range of artifacts and information about American history, from the remote archaeological past to current events."Yale University Digital Collections: The Beinecke Library has digitized more than a million images of collection material, but these represent only a fraction of total collections material on-site.


Regional Collaborations & Portals - U.S.:
Grant funding has made possible much of the digitizing that has been undertaken in libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies. Repositories frequently collaborate on grant applications and then present their digitized holdings together in regional portals. Following are a few examples of some of the excellent resources that are available.  Look for repositories where your subject is based to find digitized collections.

State Digital Resources: Helpful listing from the Library of Congress of  memory projects, online encyclopedias, and historical and cultural materials collections arranged by state.

Archives West (ID, MT, OR, UT, WA, WY): Archives West provides access to descriptions of primary sources in the western United States, including correspondence, diaries or photographs. Digital reproductions of the materials are available in some cases.


es in the western United States, including correspondence, diaries or photographs. Digital reproductions of the materials are available in some cases.Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York: DCMNY provides online access to digital collections of photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, catalogues, and memorabilia and ephemera from libraries, archives, museums and historical societies located in and around New York City.

Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative: EmpireADC is a database of finding aids for collections of archival materials in libraries, archives and cultural heritage organizations across New York state.  Search across collection descriptions to discover materials or browse the holdings of participating repositories.

New York Heritage Digital Collections: "Includes a broad range of historical, scholarly, and cultural materials held in libraries, museums, and archives throughout the state. Collection items include photographs, letters, diaries, directories, maps, books, and more."


in libraries, museums, and archives throughout the state. Collection items include photographs, letters, diaries, directories, maps, books, and more."Online Archive of California: "[P]rovides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 ... libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California." Includes 20,000 online collection guides and more than 220,000 digitized images and documents.


Introduction:
A sampling of some diaries, government documents, online newspapers and other archival collections.


Diaries & Documents:
Chronology of US Historical Documents: Full-text of U.S. historical documents. From the University of Oklahoma's School of Law.

Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries: Over 102,000 pages of personal writings by American women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries drawn from the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society. The manuscripts date from 1750 to 1950 and include letters and diary entries of ordinary women that document their daily lives, and those of more well-known women such as Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller; Ellen Tucker Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who describes life in Concord during the Civil War; and Abby Kelley Foster, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights.


Historical US Newspapers:
Accessible Archives: Full-text access to 18th and 19th century American newspapers, magazines, books, and other publications. Collections include African American newspapers, Civil War publications, anti-slavery periodicals, early women’s magazines, a collection of women’s suffrage periodicals, and publications by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and more. Over 170 books and more than 70 journals are included.


tions by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and more. Over 170 books and more than 70 journals are included.African American Historical Newspapers from ProQuest (NYPL database): This NYPL database is available to users onsite or remotely with a library card.  Includes African American historical newspapers from around the United States, such as the Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1910-1975), Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003), Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), and Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).


05), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003), Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), and Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998, via NYPL: Please log in using your New York Public Library credentials! Online access to 280 U.S. newspapers from 35 states chronicling 150 years of African American history. Coverage includes life in the Antebellum South, the Jim Crow Era, the Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, and more. This resource was created from the collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society, and the Library of Congress, with selections guided by James Danky, editor of African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography .  Danky's Bibliography is also available in the Internet Archive .


ky, editor of African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography .  Danky's Bibliography is also available in the Internet Archive .American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collections: A collection of over 7500 digitized American periodicals published from the 17th century through the late 19th century.  The Graduate Center subscribes to the five series which cover all aspects of American society, including science, medicine, literature, politics, the history of slavery, the Civil War, Westward expansion, industry and professions, agriculture, religion, fashion, family life, culture and the arts, and more.

American Periodicals (1740-1940) via NYPL: Please log in using your New York Public Library credentials! This database contains over 1,800 magazines, journals, and newspapers published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically significant titles.


interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically significant titles.America's Historical Newspapers: Searchable digital facsimiles of thousands of U.S. newspapers published in all 50 states from 1690 to the recent past.  Separately searchable series include Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922; African American Newspapers, 1827-1998; Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971; and Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876. Also see the World Newspaper Archive


1808-1980; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971; and Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876. Also see the World Newspaper ArchiveBlack Thought and Culture: African Americans from Colonial Times to the Present: Over 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, speeches, letters, political leaflets, periodicals, trial transcripts, and interviews by major American Black teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other leaders, covering over 250 years of history. Writers include James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Bunche, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Huey Newton, Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Bobby Seale, Booker T. Washington, Cornel West, Richard Wright, and many others. Search across the collection or browse by person, subject, title, historical event, content type, place, or publisher.


ichard Wright, and many others. Search across the collection or browse by person, subject, title, historical event, content type, place, or publisher.Brooklyn Newspapers: Developed by the Brooklyn Public Library, this free resources provides access to the full-text of more than 40 newspapers published in Brooklyn from 1809 to 1999.  Papers include the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1841-1963), The Caravan (1953-1961), The Chat (1903-1929), and The Williamsburg News (1952-1965), among others.  Browse by title or date, or search across the archive.

Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Online Catalog: The Center for Research Libraries provides a shared collection of five million books, journals, documents and newspapers to supplement member libraries’ holdings in the humanities, science, and social sciences. With a strategic emphasis on expanding electronic access to international primary source collections, CRL participates in a number of cooperative digitization efforts, yielding millions of pages of digitized content to date. CRL resources include:


ons, CRL participates in a number of cooperative digitization efforts, yielding millions of pages of digitized content to date. CRL resources include:The largest circulating collection of newspapers in North America – more than 16,000 newspaper titles from all world regions and from every U.S. state – mainstream dailies, underground and alternative press titles, rare publications from international conflict zones, U.S. ethnic titles, early African-American newspapers, and radio broadcast reports and transcripts Foreign journals rarely held in U.S. libraries, with a focus on science and technology Access to rich holdings in science, technology, and engineering print serials through a partnership with the Linda Hall Library More than 800,000 non U.S. dissertations Area Studies: major collections of news, government documents, and archives from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Southeast and South Asia Millions of pages of primary source documents, including major sets from the National Archives of the U.S. and the U.K., and many special collections from around the world U.S.


ry source documents, including major sets from the National Archives of the U.S. and the U.K., and many special collections from around the world U.S.ry source documents, including major sets from the National Archives of the U.S. and the U.K., and many special collections from around the world U.S.ry source documents, including major sets from the National Archives of the U.S. and the U.K., and many special collections from around the world U.S.and international legal and government resources


he National Archives of the U.S. and the U.K., and many special collections from around the world U.S.and international legal and government resourcesChronicling America: Historic American Newspapers: This site from the Library of Congress includes a searchable directory containing information on more than 150,000 newspapers published in the U.S. since 1690.  It also includes searchable digitized images of 3,600 selected local and regional newspapers published from 1777 to 1963, including more than 20 New York papers.

Fulton Search: Historical Newspapers (U.S. & Canada): A searchable database of newspapers published in the U.S. and Canada.  Create an account to log in and search and see the Help & FAQs section for tips on using the site.  Fulton Search is an alternative search option for FultonHistory.com.  Users may also browse the list of newspapers .

HathiTrust Digital Library: Millions of books digitized by a variety of major research institutions. See this post for more information about public domain items available to all via HathiTrust .


digitized by a variety of major research institutions. See this post for more information about public domain items available to all via HathiTrust .Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980: Includes over 350 fully searchable and browsable Spanish-language newspapers published by Hispanics in the U.S. from New Orleans to Brooklyn during the 19th and 20th centuries. The papers cover nearly every major theme of American life and feature a range of voices from intellectuals and literary figures to politicians, union organizers, and grassroots activists.

Internet Archive: The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form with a mission to provide universal access to all knowledge. The archive contains tens of millions of books and texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs, and 625 billion web pages.