Some of these resources represent digitized archival materials from specific institutions; others are portals to multiple institutions' digital collections or databases collocating digital archival materials on a given topic. These collections include some formats highlighted elsewhere in this guide, including newspapers, government documents, and books; in addition, they contain manuscript materials (e.g. letters, notes, drafts of publications), photographs, and more. Archives are rarely able to digitize the entirety of their holdings or the entirety of a given collection; you should look to see full descriptions of collections on an institutions' website to get more context for digitized archival materials.
After you’ve identified documents you want to use and have contextualized them in some way, you can begin to analyze them. When interpreting documents in archives, ask yourself questions like these:
You will also have additional questions specific to your research inquiries that you can bring to the materials.