Access to over 180,000 digitized books, pamphlets, and broadsides from 1701–1800, with over 32 million searchable pages. It is based on the English Short-title Catalogue (ESTC) of works from Britain, Ireland, the U.S., and British colonies.
Primary source material focusing on colonial history, politics, culture and society, spanning 5 centuries of the rise and fall of empires around the world. Includes maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings, and rare books.
An online, full-text facsimile of every complete page of every issue of The Times over a span of 200 years, from 1785 to 2014.
Cross-search Gale Primary Source US and UK historical newspaper and periodical collections covering over 400 years of archival content.
In literary studies, primary texts take two forms:
1) creative literary works, or
2) documents and other artefacts that were created at the time an historical event occurred, or at/near the time a literary work was published.
Some examples of primary texts include:
Secondary sources are sources that reflect back on and analyze these primary texts. Scholarly journal articles are secondary sources.
Be specific in your search terminology, e.g. if you want to find a medieval manuscript, say so with your search terms
Use terminology common to the historic period you are researching , rather than the modern terms. E.g “Great War” versus "World War I," “Dominion Day” versus “Canada Day,” Indians versus "aboriginal people," or "Upper Canada" versus Ontario
When searching GOOGLE, include a term that might be used to describe an online primary source collection, such as: "primary sources," “virtual library,” sources, documents, digital, catalogue, collection, museum, etc.
Think of who might have collected the type of primary source you are looking for, then search that specific website