LibGuides: SPAN 3350: Hispanic Cultures II: Primary Sources

Approaches to Finding Primary Sources

The "primaryness" of a source emerges in relation to the researcher's engagement with it. The UC Berkeley Libraries define primary sources as "either created during the time period being studied or...created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs)."

(source: Finding Historical Primary Sources: Getting Started, last updated 8/12/18, http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=4409&p=15606)

When determining primary sources for your research, it's helpful to give yourself a historical context that defines your search. This could be a range of dates. It could also be determined by geographical sites of origin. You might also be interested in a specific type of source. Some examples include:

photographs
diaries
newspaper articles
advertisements
films
web sites
sound recordings
government documents
works of art

Databases and digital repositories (see below) can offer a multitude of paths to potential primary source material for your research. In addition, you may use CLIO and the open web to find materials that you can engage as primary sources in your research (see boxes at left for strategies).

Finding Primary Sources: Digital Collections for a Range of Source Types

ArchiveGrid
lets you keyword search collection descriptions from archives around the world. Entries provide contact information and links to relevant web sites. You can narrow your search to archives in the New York City area, if needed.

Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano
a portal which brings together digitized newspapers, magazines, images, manuscripts, maps, and other sources from a range of national and university libraries and archives in Latin America.
Biblioteca Digital Hispanica
is a project of the National Library of Spain. It offers online access to books, manuscripts, drawings, prints, brochures, posters, photographs, maps and atlases, from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Through the search box, you can also cross-search archival sources from Europeana and Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano.

Biblioteca Digital Puertorriqueña
Biblioteca Digital Puertorriqueña collects and provides access to a browseable and searchable collection of images and texts covering the history and culture of Puerto Rico. Sources include posters, photographs, digitized rare books and manuscripts, and historical newspapers.

Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
has the world’s largest open access collection of digitized literary and historical texts in Spanish. You can also search the site for archival resources and critical work on major writers in Spanish. A project of the University of Alicante.

Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, 1959-
Primary-source collection of ca. 45,000 fully-searchable documents from the Casa de las Américas in Havana, documenting the culture and cultural relations of Revolutionary Cuba and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Includes such diverse materials as articles, newspaper clippings, cable messages, interviews, conference memorabilia, etc., collected from 1959 onward.
Digital Library of the Caribbean
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) provides access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections. Sources include photographs, maps, newspapers, legal materials, and more.

DIVEDCO films: Letterboxd list with titles and art
Shares a list of films, with expandable thumbnail images, created by División de Educación de la Comunidad (DIVEDCO), a Puerto Rican government agency established in 1949 with the purpose of producing cultural materials for public education on the island of Puerto Rico. Local writers, artists, community organizers, filmmakers and musicians were employed by DIVEDCO to create works and programs in their respective fields on topics of public interest.

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP): Archivo Virtual
Archivo Virtual del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña collects and shares various digitization efforts of the ICP, among them archival sources on DIVEDCO (including films), scanned issues of Boletín de Artes Populares, and back issues of Revista del ICP. Since 1955, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, or ICP, for short, has been an institution of the Government of Puerto Rico responsible for the establishment of the cultural policies required in order to study, preserve, promote, enrich, and diffuse the cultural values of Puerto Rico.
Latin American Digital Initiatives Repository
The Latin American Digital Initiatives (LADI) repository is a collaborative project that preserves and provides digital access to unique archival documents from a network of Latin American partners with an emphasis on collections documenting human rights issues and underrepresented communities. Sources include posters, books, newspapers, pamphlets, and photographs. Based at the University of Texas in Austin.
Latin American Women Writers
includes full text works of prose, poetry and drama by Latin American women writers of the 19th century, in Spanish and Portuguese. You can browse works by author, place, or genre, or conduct advanced or full text searches of works represented.

PARES: Portal de Archivos Españoles
is a project of the Spanish Ministry of Culture for the diffusion in Internet of the Spanish Historical Documentation. The portal offers free access to fully digized Spanish historical documents, including government and legal sources.
Puerto Rico Division of Community Education [DIVEDCO] Poster Collection
The collection consists of 378 posters, the majority of which are approximately 22" x 28" documenting social, cultural and educational issues for Puerto Rico. The posters were widely displayed throughout Puerto Rico and reflect key trends in the social history of Puerto Rico for fifty years. The collection is divided into three series: Series one document events, series two is social services and series three relates to economic and employment issues. Tip: look for the blue open box icon that reads "digital content" for access to select digitized sources.

Finding Primary Sources: Historical Newspapers, Magazines, and Other Serials

TIPS FOR SEARCHING FOR PERIODICALS USING CLIO CATALOG:

To search for access to a periodical with a title you know, type the title into the box and select Journal Title from the drop-down menu.
To browse periodicals published in a specific city or country, enter relevant search terms (you can use OR between them to expand results), and select Publication Place from the drop-down menu.

SEARCHING FOR ARTICLES USING KEYWORDS IN CLIO ARTICLES+:

If you are looking for articles where a specific term or set of terms might appear, type them in and select Keywords from the drop-down menu.
Use * as a symbol for missing letters to search related terms. Enclose phrases in quotes.
For instance, for articles mentioning Puerto Rico and education, you may search "Puerto Rico" AND educ*
Once search results appear, use facet boxes on the left side of the screen to narrow down by publication date, content type, and other features.

Arte Público Hispanic historical collection. Series 2.
The Latino-Hispanic American Experience: Leaders, Writers and Thinkers presents thematic content focusing on the evolution of Hispanic civil rights, religious thought, and the growing presence of women writers from the late 19th and 20th centuries. Rare and relevant books and newspapers --including rare anarchist newspapers -- are presented in their original form. Extensive manuscript collections of both organizations and individuals are included for viewing, indexed for ease of search and maximum discovery. This collection offers a unique approach, focusing exclusively on the Latino-Hispanic history in the United States.

Hemeroteca Digital
offers access to full color digitized historic newspapers and magazines, from Spain as well as a smaller selection of sources from Latin America, with well over 1000 titles in the collection. You can search the full text of these periodicals, or you can browse them by topic and title words. Coverage extends from the late 17th to the late 20th century.

Latin American Anarchist and Labour Periodicals Online
This collection contains the periodicals that have been accumulated by the Austrian anarchist, historian and collector Max Nettlau (1865-1944), together with a number of later additions, held at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam. The collection provides a richness of documentation pertaining explicitly to the formative anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist episode (1890-1920) in the history of Latin American labor movements.
Latin American and Caribbean Periodicals
Searchable and browseable collection of digitized newspapers, magazines, and journals published in Latin America, ranging from the late 1800s to mid 1900s. Hosted by the UCLA Library.
Latin American Newspapers. Series 1
Series 1 of a searchable collection of historical Latin American newspapers. Once completed this collection will include 35 newspapers published in the 19th and early 20th century in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
Latin American newspapers. Series 2
Series 2 of a searchable collection of historical Latin American newspapers. Once completed this collection will include 35 newspapers published between 1805 and 1922 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Venezuela.
NACLA Digital Archive
NACLA Digital Archive provides access to back issues of the NACLA Report on the Americas, a magazine covering major trends and current affairs in Latin America. The archive contains searchable full text in PDF format from 1967 to present.