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to remember that although there are many millions of digitized primary sources accessible online, the vast majority of unpublished archival material that exists in libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies around the world has not been digitized and is not available online.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.
- Primary Document Databases @ the GCThe 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.
- NYPL DatabasesThe 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.
- DPLA: Digital Public Library of AmericaContains 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
This link opens in a new window
The Internet Archive is a vast resource containing millions of digitized items, including microfilmed archival collections, films, oral histories, music, concerts, historical newspapers, books, pamphlets, radio and tv broadcasts and commercials, government records, sound archives, 78 rpm records, software, websites, and much more. Browse by collection to get a sense of the scope of this resource.
- GoogleAdd 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 AccessSearch 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 DirectoryAn online directory 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 WebA 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 SearchUmbra 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."
- 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.
- 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 ArchiveThe 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."
- Native Northeast PortalThe 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 HeritageDigitized 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.
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.
- Other SourcesConsult 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.
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.
- 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?