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Digital Archives & Collections: Resources

Databases and links to primary resources available through UR libraries and the open web.

Digital Collections at RBSCP

Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation has ongoing projects to digitize their most important collections. These collections can be accessed here: http://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/175 or using the new collections portal: http://digitalcollections.lib.rochester.edu/.

Interesting Collections Available Online

Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War - Letters, diaries and other primary sources from two rural counties -- one in Pennsylvania, the other in Virginia -- during the American Civil War.

Love Canal Environmental Disaster - Includes an introduction to the history and background of the events that occured at Love Canal. Includes two chronologies of events, scanned documents of the Ecumenical Task Force, database of Love Canal articles, and a glossary of definitions for individuals, organizations, businesses, government agencies, chemical waste dump sites, and major issues relating to the Love Canal and other local environmental disaster areas.

Municipal & Government

Museums & Libraries

Smithsonian Digital Library - Includes selected images from illustrated books, digitized drawings and photos, as well as indexes to some of our special collections such as art and artist vertical files, trade catalogs, postal history ephemera and more

The British Library - millions of digitally archived photos, manuscripts, web pages, and rich media files

Databases

  • Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 Parts 1 & 2 - Alternative Name(s) & Keywords: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940. LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of fully-searchable rare and unique content from microfilm, newsletters, organizational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets and other types of primary sources. Content is sourced from major gay and lesbian organizations worldwide – the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, GLBT Historical Society and others, and covers social, political, health and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world, including the gay rights movement and the HIV/Aids crisis.
  • Artemis Primary Sources - This Gale platform searches across 2 databases: 18th Century Collections Online - ECCO and 19th Century Collections Online – NCCO.
  • Nineteenth Century Collections Online - Full text archives, books, newspapers, manuscripts, photographs, maps, ephemera, and statistical data from around the world.
  • Perry-Castaneda Library, Historical Maps - Historical maps, scanned from atlases
  • Slavery & Anti-Slavery, a Transnational Archive  - Full text books, journals, manuscripts, newspapers, supreme court documents, and archives.
  • Slavery and the Law Digital Archive - Features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867
  • Witchcraft in Europe and America - A comprehensive collection of writings on the subject of witchcraft, dating from 1500 to 1930 CE. Records are mainly in Latin, English and German.

Books & Pamphlets

Magazines

  • Economist Digital Archive - Search by keyword or browse by date. Full text.
  • Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive, 1880-2000 - Full text of complete runs of major trade and consumer magazines. Primary source material reflects the development of the entertainment industry as it evolved over the 20th century. Archive 1: Music, Radio and The Stage contains 17 titles such as Billboard (1894-2000), New Music Express (NME) (1946-2000) and The Stage (1880-2000. Archive 2: Film and Television includes 10 titles such as Variety (1905-2000), Boxoffice (1920-2000) and Broadcast (1960-2000).
  • HarpWeek - Reproduces the news/opinion magazine Harper's Weekly.
  • Nation Digital Archive - Full text, plus graphics, from The Nation magazine from 1865 on.
  • National Geographic Archive, 1888-1994 - Full text online archive of replicas of print issues of National Geographic magazine published from 1888 to 1994. The archive includes articles, images, maps, and advertisements exactly as they appeared in print.
  • Vogue Archive - Full text of the US edition of Vogue magazine.

Film/Multimedia

  • Archival Films & Newsreels Video Collection - Throughout modern history, cameras have recorded public events, wars, cultural phenomena, and government programs. This collection is a treasure trove of archival and historical films from multiple sources
  • Vanderbilt Television News Archive- The Vanderbilt Television News Archive began recording broadcasts on August 5, 1968 with the mission to create, preserve and provide access to the news broadcasts from the U.S. national television networks. The core collection of the Archive consists of regularly scheduled newscasts from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News. Special news reports are recorded in addition to these newscasts, including material from other networks. We record broadcasts as they are televised, provide the widest access allowable within copyright for scholarship and research, and preserve the content for future generations. Access to videos from CNN and NBC are accessible to the University of Rochester community.

Images

  • AP Images - Photo archive containing the Associated Press' photos, most since 1995, and a selection of pictures from their image library.
  • AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive - Photo archive containing the Associated Press' photos, most since 1995, and a selection of pictures from their image library.
  • National Geographic Archive, 1888-1994 - Full text online archive of replicas of print issues of National Geographic magazine published from 1888 to 1994. The archive includes articles, images, maps, and advertisements exactly as they appeared in print.