Primary sources provide first-hand accounts of an event or topic from people directly connected to them. They can be visual, material, archeological, or written, video or audio. The sections below focus on a selection of the written and visual primary sources available via the library website. For newspapers, please see the newspapers tab.
For audio and video primary sources, please see the radio and television tab.
British Periodicals provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images.
Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the close of the seventeenth century, offering full-colour, high-resolution facsimile images of rare and hard-to-access printed sources.
Following its first launch in 1998, EEBO now contains page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473–1700. More than 200 libraries worldwide have contributed to EEBO.
Access to the following collections of British parliamentary papers: 18th century (1688-1834), 19th century (1801-1900), 20th century (1901-2003/04 session) and Hansard (1803-2005).
Access to more than 32,000 entries and a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750.
Empire Online charts the story of the rise and fall of empires over five centuries from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century.
Researchers can explore themes such as colonisation and decolonisation, missionaries, slavery, travel and travel Writing, religion, race, class and imperialism through a wealth of highly indexed manuscript and full text printed material.
Research tool which allows you to search across multiple collections of primary source documents (newspapers and archive collections).
Contains works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, plus biographies, bibliographies, criticism and reference resources.
From 1800 to 1980, Migration to New Worlds charts the movement of people throughout the ‘Century of Immigration’, through the First and Second World Wars and into the modern era. It includes personal diaries, oral histories, letters, travel journals and scrapbooks which provide individual accounts of migration and settlement in North America and Australasia. Government papers, society correspondence, original maps, watercolours, engravings, objects, shipping papers and rare printed material offer significant context to these eye-witness experiences.
Searchable full text, full page, and article-level images from the historical New York Times newspaper, 1851-2018.
A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images.
Searchable full text, full page, and article-level images from the historical Washington Post newspaper, 1877-2005.
An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines, including Cosmopolitan (1886-2005), Essence (1970-2005), Seventeen (1944-2005) and others. These key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period. Among the research fields served by this material are gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.
