LibGuides: URBS 3993-002: Urban Studies Senior Seminar: The Built Environment (Panetta): Primary Sources

Archival research guides

Archival Research at Barnard and Beyond
This is a great guide from the Barnard College Archives. Learn what a finding aid is and how to use one, how to get the most of out of an archive visit, and how to interpret primary sources.

Jennie Correia, Social Sciences Librarian

Jennie Correia

she/her/hers

Email Me

Contact:

Milstein 304

212.854.9096

Subjects: Economics, First-Year Writing, Human Rights, Political Science, Sociology, Urban Studies

Searching for primary sources in CLIO

Search the CLIO Catalog to find primary sources by adding keywords to your search, or look for them in the Subject - Genre filter. Here are some examples:

archives
bibliography
correspondence
diaries
documentary
interviews
maps
memoirs
narratives
newspapers
pamphlets
photos
oratory
speeches
sources
zines

Selected primary source databases

Browse Databases in CLIO by resource type (Archival Catalogs, Image Collections, Map & Atlas Collections, Newspaper Collections, etc.).

Ad*Access
Presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Concentrates on five main subject areas: radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene, and World War II, providing a view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History in Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina, this resource presents multiple aspects of African American community history through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, community case studies, correspondence, official records, images, reports and in-depth oral histories.
ARTstor
Searchable database of digital images and associated catalog data, with new image collections added several times a year. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, download and organize images.
Gale Primary Sources
Provides an interactive research environment that allows researchers to cross-search multiple Gale collections, including Archives Unbound, Archives of Sexuality & Gender, Associated Press Collections Online, Brazilian and Portuguese History and Culture, British Library Newspapers, the Indigenous Peoples: North America database, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, The Making of Modern Law, U.S. Declassified Documents Online, U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978, and the Women's Studies Archive.

Guide to Online Primary Sources
This research guide from the UC San Diego Libraries links to online resources for a large variety of disciplines. Some links are for the UC San Diego community only - see if Columbia has access by searching for the resource by title in CLIO.

HathiTrust Digital Library
This is a digital preservation repository and access platform for many of the United States' great research libraries, bringing together the immense collections of partner institutions. Provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources.

JSTOR Collections
Explore collections of images and primary sources from libraries, museums, and archives around the world.

Primary sources in other libraries

Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York
Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York (DCMNY) provides online access to digital collections of libraries, archives, museums and historical societies located in and around New York City. Participating institutions include those located in the Bronx. The collections include photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, catalogues, memorabilia and ephemera.
Digital Public Library of America
A portal to the digitized collections of various institutions across the nation, including millions of photographs, documents, books, audio materials, and moving images.
New York Public Library (NYPL) catalog
The NYPL catalog searches the circulating and non-circulating research collections at the NYPL. You can limit your results to the Archives & Manuscripts or Research collections.
NYPL Digital Collections
Digitized materials from New York Public Library's archival collections.
Library of Congress (LOC)
The LOC provides digitized versions of a large number of its collection materials available, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else. You can find digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, and books, as well as "born digital" materials such as Web sites.
Umbra Search
is a growing, searchable digital collection of over 400,000 sources related to African American history, from US cultural heritage institutions, museums, and archives. Umbra is developed by the Givens Collection of African American Literature at the University of Minnesota in partnership with the Penumbra Theatre Company.

WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch)
Contains over 48 million records, covering all materials (books, special collections, DVDs/VHS, serials, etc) cataloged by over 10,000 libraries around the world.

Finding Archives and Special Collections

On-campus Archives

Barnard College Archives
Documents the history of the College and also seeks to acquire Special Collections materials that relate to broader issues of feminism; women’s, sexuality, and gender studies; the history of the education of women and female-identified individuals in the United States; and the history of dance. Find materials by browsing the collection lists or searching in CLIO (find a list of these records in CLIO by doing a keyword search for "barnard archives" with the quotation marks).
Columbia Archival Collections Portal
Lets you access records of archival collections at Columbia University Libraries, including finding aids, collection descriptions, and available digital content, such as online exhibits and images. Search the repositories of Avery Library, Department of Drawings & Archives, Burke Library Archives, Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University Archives, Health Sciences Library Archives & Special Collections, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and Starr East Asian Library Rare Books and Special Collections.
Columbia Oral History Portal
Provides access to the oral history records from the Columbia Center for Oral History (CCOH).

Access Policies:

Each Columbia University archive and special collection has its own access policies and hours. You will need to make appointments and request specific items to view several days in advance. Plan ahead and bring a pencil (no pens)!
In order to use the Columbia University Archives, the Columbia Center for Oral History (CCOH), and the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML), you are required to register for a Special Collections Research Account before their visit and validate it in-person with your Barnard/Columbia ID (or government issued photo identification).

Off-campus Archives

ArchiveGrid includes over four million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more from over 1,000 different archival institutions. Search all collections by keyword, or find archives by location (scroll down the list on the home page and locate archives by country).
National Archives & National Libraries can be great places to look for material for your project. If not listed in ArchiveGrid, try searching in Google for the country name with "national archives" or "national library". You can do an advanced Google search, limiting your results to the domain of the country you are researching.
For other types of archives, try searching for organization names, people, topics, etc. and add "archives" or "digital collections".

URBS 3993-002: Urban Studies Senior Seminar: The Built Environment (Panetta)