History

When conducting historical research, you'll encounter many types of primary sources. Which format you choose to use depends on the topic of your research assignment. There is no one "one size fits all" method to using primary sources. Additional examples of primary sources include:

• Photographs
• Speeches
• Audio recordings
• Works of art

NSU DIGITAL COLLECTIONS is a collaborative project between the Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center and the Nova Southeastern University Archives. This online collection contains photographs and contextual materials that provide an insight into the history and culture of Nova Southeastern University.

Presidential Libraries are repositories for the papers, records, and historical materials of the Presidents. Through the National Archives and Records Administration, they work to preserve and provide access to primary source materials for every president since Herbert Hoover. A complete list of presidential libraries is available here.

Examples of primary sources you might find in a presidential library:

• Photographs
• Audio and film
• Speeches
• Declassified documents 

US History:

• Digital Public Library of America
  • Provides access to millions of primary and second sources from museums, libraries, and more. Includes primary source sets.
• The NAACP: Primary Source Set
• Civil Rights Digital Library
  • Provides free online access to historic materials from 200 libraries, archives, and museums documenting the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
• Sanborn Maps
  • Originally published for fire insurance companies, the maps can be used to show changes to various American cities between the 19th and 20th centuries. Access provided by the Library of Congress.

World History:

• Google Arts & Culture
  • A non-profit initiative to preserve art and culture, including photographs and museum artifacts
• British Library Digitized Manuscripts
  • Manuscripts from the British Library's collection covering a range of topics from ancient Hebrew to medieval France to classical music manuscripts and more. 
• Library of Congress Digital Collection
  • Photographs, audio recordings, maps, newspapers, and more all freely available from the Library of Congress.
• The New York Public Library Digital Collections
  • Almost one million digitized materials from the NYPL collections including photographs, prints, maps, and more. The collection is not New York City centric and includes materials from around the world.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Audio, video, images, personal papers, and more from Holocaust victims, survivors, liberators, and others. Limit to digitized in "Digital Availability" filter.
• World Digital Library
  • Early books, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, photographs, and more. The World Digital Library is available through the Library of Congress with the support of UNESCO, libraries, archives, educational institutions, and museums from around the world. 

Asia Continent History:

• The Chinese Death Landscape
  • Essays, maps, and charts related to grave relocation and burial reform in China. Please note that not all documents have English translations.
• Chinese Pamphlets: Political Communication & Mass Education
  • Mass education materials, including cartoon books, pamphlets, and magazines, published in Hong Kong and Mainland China from 1947 - 1954. Please note that not all documents have English translations.
• Digital South Asia Library
  • Scholarly reference books, images, maps, statistics, and more from the colonial period to the present.
• International Dunhuang Project
  • ​​Information and images of manuscripts, paintings, textiles, and artifacts from archeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road.
• Chinese Rubbings Collection
  • ​A Harvard University Library's Virtual Collection that contains over 2,000 rubbings from ancient stone stelae and inscriptions dating from the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BCE) to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE).