Databases/Websites with Primary Sources
This collection of databases is but a small sample of what UD subscribes to. For a full list of what we have, go to our "Databases" page and search for "Arts & Humanities Databases" from the "Browse by Subject" list. Please also visit the "Secondary Sources" tab to find databases that have Newspapers that are primary sources.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowEthnic NewsWatch is a comprehensive full-text database of the newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press. It is a collection of more than 700,000 full-text articles from over 200 publications. Searchable in both English and Spanish, with titles in both languages and more than 100,000 articles in Spanish, Ethnic NewsWatch provides a rich collection of articles, editorials, and reviews with a broad diversity of perspectives often at variance with the mainstream media.
- HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowHathiTrust (pronounced hah-tee) is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. The mission of HathiTrust is to contribute to research, scholarship, and the common good by collaboratively collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, and sharing the record of human knowledge. Items in the public domain (out of copyright) are in full-view for everyone and items held in copyright are searchable.
- Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan, and AfghanistanForeign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980 consists of the complete run of documents in the series DO 133, DO 134 and FCO 37, as well as all documents covering the Indian subcontinent in the FO 371 series. Events covered include independence and partition, the Indian annexation of Hyderabad and Goa, war between India and Pakistan, tensions and war between India and China, the consolidation of power of the Congress Party in India, military rule in Pakistan, the turbulent independence of Bangladesh and the development of nuclear weapons in the region.
- Foreign Office Files for the Middle EastThis collection is an essential resource for understanding the events in the Middle East during the 1970s. It addresses the policies, economies, political relationships and significant events of every major Middle East power. Conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli War, the Lebanese Civil War and the Iranian Revolution are examined in detail, as are the military interventions and peace negotiations carried out by regional and foreign powers like the United States and Russia.
- Confidential Print: Middle EastThe Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research. The series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.
- Afghanistan Digital LibraryThe Afghanistan Digital Library will retrieve and restore works published in Afghanistan between 1870 and 1930; the long-term objective is to collect, catalogue, digitize and provide access to as many of this period's publications as possible.
- Cambridge Digital Library: Islamic ManuscriptsCambridge University Library's collection of Islamic manuscripts dates from the origins of Arabic scholarship in Cambridge in the 1630s when the University founded a Professorship in Arabic and William Bedwell donated a Qurʼān to the Library. Since that time the collection has grown in size and diversity to over 5,000 works, including the collections of Thomas Erpenius, J.L.Burckhardt, E.H.Palmer and E.G. Browne. These manuscripts shed light on many aspects of the Islamic world, its beliefs and learning.
- Digital Persian ArchiveThe Project aims at facilitating access to the growing number of available Persian historical deeds and documents, both published and unpublished. It shall allow work on archival material with the help of incorporated facsimiles without recourse to the original - often remote - place of publication or storage.
- Islamic Heritage ProjectMaterials in the Islamic Heritage Project digital collection date from the 10th to the 20th centuries and represent many areas of Islamic History.
- Middle East Research and Information ProjectMERIP provides critical, alternative reporting and analysis, focusing on state power, political economy and social hierarchies as well as popular struggles and the role of US policy in the region. MERIP seeks to reach academics, journalists, non-governmental and governmental organizations and informed citizens who want knowledgeable analysis and critical resources about contemporary political developments. Informed by scholarship and research, MERIP is a curated platform for critical analysis and discussion that brings informed perspectives to a broader audience.
- Princeton Digital Library of Islamic ManuscriptsThe Princeton University Library has some 9,500 Islamic manuscripts, chiefly bound paper codices, containing a total of more than 20,000 texts, dating back to early Islam.