Spence School Library: 2022 Fall Elective: American Cultural History: Primary Source Websites

Primary Source Introduction

Primary Source Digital Libraries
Definition

Finding Primary Sources*

The texts of primary sources are available online in two different ways:

freely available on the Internet (example: American Memory from the Library of Congress). It is important to carefully consider how you find and evaluate primary sources on the Internet.

available via library databases (example: Historical Newspapers, Artstor) that may be used from any computer with access to the school libguide.

*Berkley Library University of California, Finding Historical Primary Sources: Primary Sources Online, http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=4409&p=15610

Digital Libraries

A digital library is a special library with a focused collection of digital objects that can include text, visual material, audio material, video material, stored as electronic media formats (as opposed to print, microform, or other media), along with means for organizing, storing, and retrieving the files and media contained in the library collection. Digital libraries can vary immensely in size and scope, and can be maintained by individuals, organizations, or affiliated with established physical library buildings or institutions, or with academic institutions.*

Pradeep B Ghante ed and Ashok Yakkaldevi ed, Library Automation (Solapur: Laxmi Book Publications, 2014), 17.

A digital library is an online collection of digital objects, of assured quality, that are created or collected and managed according to internationally accepted principles for collection development and made accessible in a coherent and sustainable manner, supported by services necessary to allow users to retrieve and exploit the resources. - IFLA/UNESCO Manifesto for Digital Libraries

Web Databases

Digital Public Library of America
the portal provides access to a search united collection of millions of items by timeline, map, virtual bookshelf, format, subject, and partner. It brings together resources from libraries, museums, and cultural organizations around the world. Highly recommended!
Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center
The Smithsonian Collections Search Center is an online catalog containing most of Smithsonian major collections from our museums, archives, libraries, and research units.
Internet Archive
"Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more."

Large Digital Library Collections

The National Museum of American History Digital Objects
The diverse collections of the National Museum of American History reflect a wide variety of subjects relating to the history of the United States as well as the history of science, medicine, and technology.
Duke Digital Collections
Digitized historic photographs, advertisements, texts & more.
Ad*Access
Duke University Libraries "Over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955."

Google Magazines & Historical Magazines

Media History Digital Library
We are a non-profit initiative dedicated to digitizing collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access. Includes trade papers and fan magazines.
Life Magazine 1936-1972
LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century.
Ebony Magazine (1954-2008)
EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine.
Jet
Nov 1951 through 2008 available online through Google Magazines.
New York Magazine 1965-1995
New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country.

The Crises: When W. E. B. Du Bois founded The Crisis in 1910, as the house magazine of the fledgling NAACP, he created what is arguably the most widely read and influential periodical about race and social injustice in U.S. history. Written for educated African-American readers, the magazine reached a truly national audience within nine years, when its circulation peaked at about 100,000.

Volume 1 - 25 (1910 - 1922) of the Crises are available through The Modernist Journals Project (“modernism began in the magazines”), a joint project of Brown University and The University of Tulsa.
The Crisis 1911-2011: Available from Google Books.