History Librarian
Literature Librarian
Melissa Jones
Contact:
Research Consultations are available in person and via Zoom. Click Schedule Appointment to reserve a time. Email me if you need an alternate time.
202-687-7595
Digital Primary Source Collections
- 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Gathered by Reverend Charles Burney, 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers is a collection of the newspapers and news pamphlets primarily published in London, with some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and examples from the American colonies. The original Burney volumes are now in a poor physical state and only available through restricted use.
- America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new windowSearchable monographs, pamphlets, broadsides, government documents and ephemera enable researchers to explore America's distant and not so distant past. Available here: Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; Early American Imprints, Series I: Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1670-1800; Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819; Early American Imprints, Series II: Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1801-1819.
- JSTOR Images Search This link opens in a new windowComprehensive digital library containing images of artworks, photographs, architecture, decorative arts, rare books, and items from popular culture. Includes images from the Artstor collection, as well as other collections.
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new windowFacsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, archaeology, architecture, and the social sciences.
- Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876 This link opens in a new windowMore than 140 newspapers from 22 islands, including Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Grenada, Guadaloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Nevis, Puerto Rico, St. Bartholomew, St. Christopher, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, Trinidad, and the Virgin Islands.
- Colonial State Papers This link opens in a new windowThis collection represents thousands of papers that were presented to the Privy Council and the Board of Trade between 1574-1757, and that relate to the governance of, and activities in, the American, Canadian and West Indian colonies of England. Colonial State Papers also includes the Calendar of State Papers Colonial – an advanced bibliographic search tool providing over 40,000 records of bibliographic description for documents from many collections, including those of CO 1. Calendar of State Papers Colonial consists of bibliographic entries along with transcriptions, extracts and abstracts, in fully keyed XML.
- Diderot's EncyclopediaFull-text in English and French.
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new windowFeatures page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new windowDigital reproductions of every page of significant English- and foreign-language titles printed in Great Britain during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas and elsewhere. Searches the full text of books, pamphlets, essays, and other non-periodical materials including the complete works of major 18th-century writers.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new windowThis resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology. Collections include: Section I: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969. Section II: Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire. Section III: The Visible Empire. Section IV: Religion & Empire. Section V: Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, 1607-2007.
- Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new windowCollection of digital facsimile images of 61,000 works of literature on economics and business published from 1450 through 1945. Covers commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade and transport.
Includes:
Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection, 1450-1850
Part II, 1851-1914 - Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new windowBased on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. With over 6 million pages from 29,000 works, this collection is a cornerstone in the study of the western hemisphere.
- Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new windowSlavery and Anti-Slavery includes documents from the United States and Europe, as well as other parts of the world. In addition to newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, Slavery and Anti-Slavery contains documents from several archives originally available only on microfilm. Includes:
Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition
Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World
Part III: The Institution of Slavery
Part IV: Age of Emancipation - British Literary Manuscripts This link opens in a new windowA digitized collection of manuscripts of British authors dating from roughly 1120 to 1900. Contains poems, plays, novels, diaries, journals, correspondence, and other papers from major library collections, reproduced in facsimile and searchable via detailed descriptive information.
ECCO Video Tutorial
Published Primary Sources
A lot of primary sources are published and you can use library catalogs like HoyaSearch to locate them.
Subject headings are like tags in YouTube, but they are consistent. There are subject headings that are used for primary sources:
- Sources
- Diaries
- Personal narratives
- Correspondence
- Early works
You can use these in HoyaSearch. Countries are also subject headings.
If you find a book that is relevant for your topic, make sure you look at the subject headings by clicking on the full record tab in HoyaSearch. This will give you other good search terms. The Library of Congress often uses strange vocabulary and you'll get better results if you can use it effectively.
A more complete explanation is here. When you do a search in HoyaSearch (or another library catalog like WorldCat), try using one of these terms as a SUBJECT search and then adding in a keyword. Your keywords might have to be pretty broad, as you are only searching a very small amount of information about the books - NOT the full text of them.
