Freely Available Primary Source Collections
Remember to employ advanced search strategies to meet your specific needs when using online search engines.
Primary source projects are often organized by libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, or even international organizations (like UNESCO). The following are just some of the freely available primary source collections or projects accessible online:
- Library of Congress: African Government Web Archive: Web captures from "key African government ministries, institutions and organizations for the 51 countries in Africa south of the Sahara." 2014 to present
- Library of Congress: Middle East/North Africa Government Institutions Web Archive: Web captures from "government organizations from countries of the Middle East and North Africa." 2014 to present
- UNESCO Video & Sound Collections: Allows for searching by country or region
Paid-for Primary Source Collections
The library subscribes to the following databases that include primary source content related to countries within Africa.
- African Diaspora, 1860-Present Primary sources concerning the migrations, communities, and ideologies of the African Diaspora through the voices of people of African descent.
- Archives UnboundTopically-focused digital collections of historical documents. Includes the collection: Liberation Movement in Africa and African America.
- Factiva This link opens in a new window Includes text of newspapers, news wires & more. Use Factiva's Search feature to limit by region and/or country within Africa.
- HathiTrust Large collection of full text in the public domain. Includes texts published in a wide range of languages and from various countries.
- HeinOnline Includes primary sources relating to laws and legal issues. Includes international sources, like world constitutions and world trials.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Now includes ArtStor's visual content. Search in 1 place to find scholarship, books, art, and more!
- NewsBank Access World News This link opens in a new window Articles from 9,000+ U.S. and international full-text information sources, mostly newspapers and wire services. Browse articles by African country.
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window Includes various diplomatic records concerning countries within Africa, as well as personal narratives of European travelers. The sub-collection, Yale Divinity School Periodicals on Africa, includes publications issues within various African countries, like Sierra Leone Weekly News
- Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window A large proportion of materials in this database were published in Europe or North America. Collection includes "American Colonization Society: A Register of its Records in the Library of Congress."
- Westlaw Campus Research This link opens in a new window Database of legal information and sources. News sources feature hundreds of U.S. and international newspapers and broadcast transcripts.
Scholarly &/or Secondary Sources
The below databases are good places to start when looking for scholarly secondary sources on historical topics.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window Excellent starting point. Multidisciplinary article database offers access to more than 16,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers, including over 15,000 peer-reviewed journals.
- Humanities International Complete This link opens in a new window Coverage of over 2,000 journals in history, film studies, religion, philosophy, and other fields within the humanities.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window A digital archive of over 1,100 important scholarly journals. Often coverage excludes the most recent releases for 2-to-5 years, based on JSTOR's agreement with the journal's publisher.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window Full-text access to about 600 journals from academic publishers.
If your topic is interdisciplinary, one of the following databases may be helpful.
- Environment Complete This link opens in a new window "Deep coverage in applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine and freshwater science, geography, pollution and waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more."
- Feminae; Medieval Women and Gender Index This link opens in a new window Indexes journal articles and more about women, sexuality, and gender in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, from 450-1500 AD.
- Index Islamicus This link opens in a new window International bibliography of publications in European languages on all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world. It covers their history, beliefs, societies, cultures, languages and literatures...indexing for over 3,400 titles with coverage dating back to 1906.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics.
- Religion & Philosophy Collection This link opens in a new window Full-text coverage of nearly 300 journals, including 262 peer-reviewed publications, "covering topics such as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy."
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window Comprehensive coverage of sociology and its sub-disciplines, with very good coverage of related areas of study, especially politics. In addition to full-text journals, it contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895.
- Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window Nearly 600,000 entries from over 2,000 periodicals and other sources, dating back to the 1970's, on the "core disciplines in Women's Studies."