Head of Archives & Special Collections
Nadia Nasr
she/her(s)
Contact:
Archives & Special Collections
Library and Learning Commons, 3rd floor
Norman F. Martin Reading Room
Library and Learning Commons, 3rd floor
Norman F. Martin Reading Room
408-554-6808
Website
Subjects: Archives & Special Collections
Overview of Resources and Repositories
This page gives a list of resources and repositories broken down by region. Educators can search through these repositories to find primary sources that they can include in their lesson plans. The following repositories also have lesson plans that are based around specific primary source sets:
- DPLA Primary Source Sets -- DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) has created dozens of lesson plans with teaching guides and curated resources for use by educators in their classrooms. Educators can search by subject and time period.
- Library of Congress Classroom Materials - Library of Congress also has dozens of lesson plans with curated resources for use by educators. Educators can search by topic, era, and recommended grade level.
- DocsTeach by the National Archives - The National Archives has also provided activities using primary sources created by and for educators, divided by topic.
Santa Clara University affiliates interested in looking at a list of curated primary sources by topic can view this google doc, which was created for SCU's Fall 2020 EDUC 289A students. Please note that you will need an SCU login to view the document; however, many of the repositories are included on this page as well.
SCU Archival Materials
- Santa Clara University - Physical Archival MaterialThis guide, 'A Guide to the Santa Clara University Archives: Searching,' provides information about how to search through SCU's Archives & Special Collections physical holdings. We are more than happy to digitize items upon request.
- Santa Clara University Digital CollectionsSCU Digital Collections contain materials from Archives & Special Collections that have been digitized and put online. These digital files are faithful reproductions of the physical materials that are stored within Archives & Special Collections.
- Santa Clara University Digital Collections - Research GuideIncludes information about how to search SCU Digital Collections.
California History Archival Materials
- California Digital ArchivesCalifornia Digital Archives showcases some collections and exhibits held and created by the California State Archives.
- California Historical Society Digital LibraryThe California Historical Society (CHS) digital library showcases specific collections from CHS holdings that have been digitized.
- CalisphereAs per their website, "Calisphere is a gateway to digital collections from California's great libraries, archives, and museums. Discover over 1,950,000 images, texts, and recordings—and counting." Calisphere may include primary sources as well as secondary sources such as reports or rare books.
- Farmworker Movement Documentation ProjectPrimary source accounts by the UFW volunteers who built the movement. Divided into essays, glossary, photos & art, music, oral history, videos, and 50th anniversary.
- Latina(o) Cultural Heritage ArchivesA database featuring photographs and documents assembled from twelve collections of the Urban Archives of the Oviatt Library Special Collections and Archives. Funded as part of the Hispanics-Serving Institutions Grant of the State of California, these materials capture the history of Latino and Chicana/o people and culture in Southern California. Click on the ‘Browse Collection’ button; the “Browse items” button at the top takes you to all the primary sources, not just Latina(o) Cultural Heritage items. Items include photographs, letters, playbills, and articles from newspapers and magazines.
- Online Archive of CaliforniaAs per their site, the Online Archive of California (OAC) "provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses."
- UCLA Library Digital CollectionsDigitized holdings of UCLA.
- UC Santa Barbara Chicano Movement in CaliforniaAbout 97 videos from the 1960s to the 1990s tagged as being part of or about the Chicano movement in California. Includes videos in English and Spanish, although language isn’t indicated in the metadata, so you have to play the video to find out what language it's in. Also, not captioned, so not accessible to students with hearing impairments.
American History Archival Materials
- Birmingham Public Library Digital CollectionsBirmingham Public Library Digital Collections contains digitized resources related to the history of Birmingham and the surrounding area. BPL has a considerable number of resources about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement.
- Digital Public Library of AmericaDPLA brings together millions of primary sources from the collections of institutions throughout the country.
- Discovering American Women's History OnlineMaintained by Middle Tennessee State University, this digital collection features over 700 primary sources that document the history of women in the United States.
- Library of Congress Digital CollectionsThe Library of Congress has over 400 collections of sources that have been digitized and made available online. Users can search by subject and type of resource.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education InstituteThe Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford has created a list of featured documents from their King papers collection. These include letters, telegrams, and notes.
- National Museum of African American History & CultureThe National Museum of African American History & Culture provides a number of images and documents divided by topic.
- National Museum of the American IndianThe National Museum of the American Indian has over 11,000 objects digitized and available for online viewing.
- The National WWII MuseumThe National World War II Museum has classroom resources for teachers, including "free, primary-source driven lesson plans, image galleries, and other resources."
- South Asian American Digital ArchiveThe largest publicly accessible archive of South Asian American history.
World History Archival Materials
- Africa Online Digital Library (AODL)From the site: "AODL is an open access digital library of African cultural heritage materials created by Michigan State University in collaboration with museums, archives, scholars, and communities around the world."
- British Library Digital CollectionsThe British Library has a number of digital collections, including manuscripts and sound recordings.
- British Museum Online CollectionsThe British Museum Online Collections features high-quality photographs of millions of artifacts held in their collection.
- Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME)From the site: "
In response to the tragic displacement of people, loss of life in conflict zones, and ongoing threats to the cultural heritage of the Middle East through destruction, looting, and illicit trafficking, the Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME) has begun to federate Middle Eastern collections from around the world, creating a publicly accessible, inter-operable digital library of cultural material." - East Asia Digital Library (EADL)From the site: "The East Asia Digital Library (EADL) is a portal site focusing on East Asian cultural and scientific resources. The National Library of Korea and the National Diet Library, Japan develop and operate the site collaboratively. The EADL makes primary materials about East Asia available free of charge and in multilingual format."
- EuropeanaEuropeana, similar to DPLA, is an aggregate service that connects users to digitized resources from institutions all over Europe. This is a great place to start if you're looking for resources related to European history.
- LIFE Magazine Photo ArchiveAs per the site, "Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."
- Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art has digitized over 8,000 pieces of art from their collections, including artifacts from almost every continent.
- Oriental Institute at the University of ChicagoThe Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago has digitized a selection of highlights of their collections. These can be sorted by region and subject.
- The Rubin Museum of ArtFrom the site: "Discover works of art in our online database that spark your curiosity or inspire you. Featuring over 600 objects from Himalayan regions, our online collection presents a searchable database of selected artworks from the Rubin Museum’s permanent collection of approximately 3,800 objects spanning more than 1,500 years to the present day. "
- Southeast Asia Digital LibrarySEADL "exists to provide educators, students, scholars and members of the general public with a wide variety of materials published or otherwise produced in SE Asia."
- United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has collated a number of primary sources relating to the Holocaust, including propaganda, correspondence, and trial documents.
- World Digital Library - LOCThe World Digital Library, from the Library of Congress, seeks to "preserve and share some of the world's most important cultural objects."