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Primary Sources
A primary source is "first-hand" information, sources as close as possible to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources are contrasted with secondary sources, works that provide analysis, commentary, or criticism on the primary source. In literary studies, primary sources are often creative works, including poems, stories, novels, and so on. In historical studies, primary sources include written works, recordings, or other source of information from people who were participants or direct witnesses to the events in question. Examples of commonly used primary sources include government documents, memoirs, personal correspondence, oral histories, and contemporary newspaper accounts.
UCLA Special Collections
Below are links to primary locations for print special collections of relevance to the study of literature at UCLA. Select online finding aids are also available via the Online Archive of California.
- UCLA Library Special CollectionsCollections include a wide variety of literary rare books, as well as manuscripts and archival collections relating to specific authors and poets.
- Performing Arts Special Collections (PASC)Primary location for music, film and television, and theater special collections. Click on "Archival Collections" to browse. Performing Arts Special Collections shares the same space with YRL Special Collections.
- William Andrews Clark Memorial LibraryLocated in the historic West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, UCLA’s Clark Library is a rare book and manuscript library specializing in the study of England and the Continent from the Tudor period through the long eighteenth century. Other subject strengths include Oscar Wilde, book arts and fine press printing, and Montana and the West. The Clark Library is open to anyone who wishes to conduct research with its holdings.
- Elmer Belt Library of VincianaPart of UCLA Library Special Collections, the Elmer Belt Library is a special collection of books and materials concerning Leonardo da Vinci and the Italian Renaissance. The Library was given to UCLA in 1961 by Dr. Elmer Belt, a Professor Emeritus in the UCLA School of Medicine and a collector of Vinciana for over sixty years.
Selected Primary Source Resources
- Acta Sanctorum This link opens in a new window
A collection of documents examining the lives of saints, organized according to each saint's feast day, from two January volumes published in 1643 to the December volume published in 1940.
- Defining Gender, 1450-1910 This link opens in a new window
Contains primary source material from British and European archives, and includes four thematic areas: Conduct and Politeness, Domesticity and the Family, Consumption and Leisure, Education and Sensibility, and The Body.
- Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus This link opens in a new windowOver 3,000 different texts of surviving Old English (Anglo Saxon and Medieval) material that is the basis of the Dictionary of Old English, covering the first six centuries (C.E. 600-1150) of the English language.
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new windowCitations from early English texts from 1475 to 1700, presented as digital images. Includes works by Malory, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton, Galileo; musical exercises by Henry Purcell and novels by Aphra Behn; prayer books, pamphlets, and proclamations; almanacs, calendars, and many other primary sources.
- Early European Books This link opens in a new windowTraces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the close of the 17th century, offering full-color, high-resolution facsimile images of rare and hard-to-access printed sources.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
Thousands of books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more, based on the English Short Title Catalogue. A comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which aimed to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with major works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new windowPrimary source manuscripts and secondary essays relevant to Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion & Empire; and Race, Class & Colonialism, 1783-1969.
- HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowA repository of scanned books contributed from academic institutions across the United States, including UCLA. Books still in copyright are scanned and searchable, but the full text scans will not become available online until their copyright expires.
- Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new windowFully searchable virtual library of Greek and Latin literature with English translations; includes epic and lyric poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, travel, philosophy, oratory, medicine, and mathematics, among other contents.
- Medieval Family Life This link opens in a new windowFive collections of family letters from 15th-century England. The database contains full-color images of the original medieval manuscripts, viewable side-by-side with searchable transcripts.
- Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new windowPresents manuscripts of some of the most important works of European travel writing from the later medieval period. The chief focus is on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia. The collection also includes a number of important accounts of travels to or through the Holy Land although in this it makes no claims to full or even broad coverage: a separate collection, covering crusading and pilgrimage narratives, would be required for that.
- Parliament Rolls of Medieval England This link opens in a new windowOfficial records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I until the reign of Henry VII (1272 - 1509). Reproduces the rolls edited in Rotuli Parliamentorum (RP), plus those subsequently published by Cole, Maitland, and Richardson and Sayles, as well as a substantial amount of material never previously published. Accompanied by full translations of all the texts (originals in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English).
- Patrologia Latina This link opens in a new window
"An electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855, and the four volumes of indexes published between 1862 and 1865. The Patrologia Latina comprises the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216."
- Thesaurus Linguae Graecae This link opens in a new window
TLG has collected and digitized most texts written in Greek from Homer (8 c. B.C.) to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453 and beyond. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era. Individual login account required, in addition to campus authentication.
- Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new windowHundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Sources cover topics including the arts, the British Empire, exploration, race, and more. Contents also include manuscripts, diaries and correspondence, drawings, guidebooks and photographs.
- Women Writers Online This link opens in a new windowA full-text collection of early women's writing in English, published by the Women Writers Project at Northeastern University. It includes full transcriptions of texts published between 1526 and 1850, focusing on materials that are rare or inaccessible and women's literate culture in the early modern period.
- World Folklore and Folklife This link opens in a new window
Thousands of classic folk tales, including the complete Hans Christian Andersen stories, Grimms' fairy tales, and folktales from around the world. Contextual material adds new depth to familiar stories.
General Catalogs and Finding Aids
- ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new windowSearches finding aids for historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in libraries, museums, and archives around the world. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.
- C19: Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window19th century books, journals, magazines, official documents, newspapers, and archives. Includes The Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index, Palmer's Index to the Times, and Periodicals Index Online.
- National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)Gateway for searching OCLC WorldCat manuscripts.
- Online Archive of California (OAC) This link opens in a new windowFinding aids for primary source collections in all UC campuses and other contributing institutions, including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California.
- Subject CollectionsLast updated in 1993, this still-useful print source identifies special collections in the U.S. by broad subject.
- WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch) This link opens in a new window
OCLC FirstSearch catalog includes citations for books, journals, manuscripts, maps, music scores, sound recordings, films, computer files, newspapers, slides, videotapes, archival material, etc., in libraries around the world.
Images
Images are becoming easier to find these days, thanks to the Internet. However, you do need to think about copyright if you are going to use images in publications, on web sites, and so on.
The easiest source for images is to do a Google search and click on Images link near the top of the page. Be careful about trusting the descriptions of these images--they may not be historically accurate. Here are some other, more reliable sources:
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowHigh-resolution Images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences. Includes a suite of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and teaching purposes. Images are contributed by museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, artists, and estates, from a variety of sources including the Hartill Archive of Architecture and Allied Arts. UC campuses contribute additional images including: the Archivision Library, Saskia Art & Architecture images, the Visual Resources Collections from UCB, UCSB, UCI, UCLA, UCR, and the UCSC Library Instructional Collection. Now hosted on the JSTOR platform.
- Calisphere This link opens in a new windowOver one million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more from the collections digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new windowPrimary source manuscripts and secondary essays relevant to Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion & Empire; and Race, Class & Colonialism, 1783-1969.
- Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new windowCombines Grove Art Online, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, the Oxford Companion to Western Art, Benezit Dictionary of Artists, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Includes image partnerships with ARTstor, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Images for College Teaching, Art Resource, Artists Rights Society, and numerous international art galleries and artists.
- Images from the History of MedicineFrom the National Library of Medicine