For a list of additional primary source collections, refer to the Primary Sources tab at the top of this guide. 
 

Canadian primary source collections

• Canadiana Online - Full-text historical primary source content about Canada, including books, magazines and government documents published from the time of the first European settlers to the first half of the 20th century. This is a very large database, limit searches by date and try searching for keywords in the title or subject to improve relevance.
   
• Héritage - Primary sources spanning the 1600s to the 1900s. Includes Aboriginal records, government, military and war documents, papers of prominent Canadians, genealogy sources, and landmark papers from Canadian history.
   
• Hudson’s Bay Company Archives - HBCA digitized 1052 reels of microfilm, encompassing over 10,000 volumes of the pre-1870 records kept at almost five hundred Hudson’s Bay Company posts.  Included are post journals, incoming and outgoing correspondence and accounts kept at individual posts. They also include records kept at districts and departments overseeing the post activity, e.g., lists of servants, accounts, reports, engagement registers, abstracts of servants’ accounts and minutes of council. To limit results to digitized content, add PDF to your search terms.
   
• Calgary Stampede Archives - Photographs, programs, catalogs, corporate records, and other printed ephemera from Calgary Stampede Archives from 1908 - early 2000s.
   

International primary source Collections

• Making of the Modern World - Covers the history of Western trade, the rise of the modern labor movement, the evolving status of slavery, the condition and making of the working class, colonization, the Atlantic world, Latin American/Caribbean studies, social history, gender, and the economic theories that championed and challenged capitalism in the nineteenth century.
   
• Empire Online - Content spans the five centuries of the rise and fall of empires around the world. Contains pages of unique primary source material including maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings, and rare books. Good source for colonial trade commodities.
   
• Hagley Museum and Archive - Largely American documents focused on the history of business and technology (and related areas).
   
• Lloyd’s Register Foundation (Heritage and Education Centre) - Helpful for those interested in shipping and trade. The documents were used by Lloyd’s of London to determine whether or not vessels should/could be insured. They also tracked what was being shipped, and tracked the shipwrecks and their cargo.
   
• Internet Archive - Includes a number of scanned books and publications that have been digitized by archives and libraries around the world. Search by keyword and limit to a particular date range e.g. Self-service food stores (1946). Use the lower search box, not the Wayback Machine. 

Historical Newspapers and Magazines

• The Globe and Mail (1844-2010)
• The Toronto Star (1894-2011)
• Calgary Herald (1883-2010)
• Edmonton Journal (1903-2010)
• Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2015
• Financial Times Historical Archives, 1888-2010 
• Women's Magazine Archive - Includes historical issues of magazines like Chatelaine and Ladies Home Journal from the late 19th century to 2005. Good for finding historical advertising.
   

Corporate History Resources

• Canadian Corporate Reports - Includes historical annual reports from a selection of Canadian Companies, dating back to early 1900s in some cases
   
• Wayback Machine - Internet Archive - Access historical snapshots of an organization’s website

Additional Resources

• Ad*Access - 7,000 ads from Canada and the U.S. from 1911-1955
• Canadian Mail Order Catalogues - selection of historical mail order catalogues from Canadian companies like Eaton’s

History is a topic with broad interest that extends beyond history scholars. For this reason, you must pay particular attention to the quality and audience of the sources you will use in your research. Look for substantial sources that clearly display indicators of scholarliness:

• Authority: Who is responsible for the information? Written by a history scholar with an advanced academic credential, published by a reputable academic organization.
• Process: What process did the information go through to be published? Scholarly sources are based on substantial original research (look for footnotes and bibliography), and are peer-reviewed.
• Purpose: What is the purpose of the source? Scholarly sources are intended to inform academic experts. Look for specialized academic language, formal writing  and formatting, and avoid sourced intended to entertain rather than inform.

Examples: Scholarly Sources

• Scholarly history book - note the university publisher and the mention of bibliographic references.
• Scholarly journal article - note the author affiliation, article length and style, footnotes and title of journal where article appears.

Examples: Non--scholarly sources that are generally not appropriate to cite in academic history writing:

• Book review - note the book price, a clue that this is a review and not a scholarly article.
• Magazine article - note the short length and that the author has no academic affiliation or credential listed. 
• Website - note the absence of footnotes and that no individual author is listed; consider the intentions of the site host. 

LibrarySearch is the best starting point for finding books and articles at MRU

• Within the search results, don't overlook items that seem broadly related to your topic. Look at the item descriptions and article abstracts, chapter headings of books, or do quick keyword searches of ebooks to see if your narrower or more specific topic discussed.
• Put important phrases inside quotation marks e.g., "canadian pacific railroad" 
• Put synonyms inside brackets to search for either one at the same time e.g., (automobiles OR cars) 
   

Pro Tip
For some topics, it can be difficult to find narrow a topic successfully via your search terms. Try limiting your search by selecting Subject from the options on the right side, then choose a relevant subject tag from the list of options.

Pro Tip
Did you know you can lock your filters in place in Library Search? Hover your cursor over the limit and click to look it in place. Now, even if you change your search terms, the limit will stay in place.

If you find yourself overwhelmed with results in LibrarySearch you can try some of the following journal article databases which search fewer, but potentially more relevant, journals.

Use the same strategies you used in LibrarySearch, and be sure to use the advanced search options and filters to improve results.

• Google Scholar can sometimes be helpful in discovering journal articles, particularly on more obscure topics.
• Make sure to adjust the settings in Google Scholar so it recognizes you go to MRU, and will therefore link to the full-text where available via MRU Library. Note that Google Scholar generally won't link to the full text of a book, though occasionally it will link to a excerpt or preview of a book.
• Pay close attention to Google Scholar's "Cited By" references, which lead to a list of sources that have cited a particular source. They can be very helpful in leading to additional, relevant sources on a topic. This is known as citation chaining.
  
   

Bibliography Mining and More on Citation Chaining

• Make it a habit to skim footnotes and bibliographies for relevant primary and secondary sources, then try to track them down. 
• Look for the citation chaining arrows in LibrarySearch, which lead to items cited within a source, and later sources that cite that source.
   

Searching directly within a journal relevant to the topic can sometimes yield good results quickly. Here are a few relevant to this course:

- MRU guide to Chicago style references

- More Chicago citation resources

- Chicago style - slide presentation