LibGuides: Diversify Your Sources: Primary Sources

Primary sources with diverse voices

Primary sources are normally the original materials or evidences to be analyzed in research. They can be in the formats of books, archive collections, articles, multi-media and digital collections. Due to the historical reasons, some early sources listed here were produced and published under the colonial model. Users need to apply critical evaluation and careful reflection on the oppression and biases depicted in the materials.

the Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History & Culture Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 covers topics including LGBTQ activism and the HIV/AIDS crisis. It provides researchers with the documents necessary to delve deep into the Gay Rights Movement with resources that may otherwise go undiscovered. Repositories for this collection include: Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation; Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives; Women's Energy Bank; GLBT Historical Society; National Library of Medicine; among other archives.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 Provides scholars access to the United Kingdom’s Colonial, Dominion and Foreign Offices’ confidential correspondence relating to Africa between 1834 and 1966. This resource provides researchers with a searchable collection of scores of official documents covering almost the entire period of European conquest and colonisation of Africa.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 From the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict, Confidential Print: Middle East is a fundamental resource for academics, students and researchers studying the modern Middle East. These historical documents inform the volatile situation in the region today.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961 This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America, and covers such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism and the nuclear bomb. The bulk of the material covers the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980 Sourced from the British Foreign Office files, this is a resource for the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1947-1980. There is an immense variety of material including diplomatic dispatches, telegrams, newspaper cuttings and transcripts, maps, photographs, political and economic reports, accounts of visits and tours, minutes of meetings, conference proceedings, letters, leaflets and other ephemera.
Global NewsBank
This database supports Map search by geographic areas and keyword search to access the English newspapers published around world. It provides under-represented perspectives from the main western media.
Indigenous Peoples: North America Enabling exploration of the political, social, and cultural history of Native Peoples from the 16th century well into the 20th century, Indigenous Peoples: North America illustrates the fabric of the North American story with unprecedented depth and breadth. The collection covers the history of American Indian tribes and supporting organizations.
Multicultural Canada
The Multicultural Canada digitization project grew from our conviction that the cultural groups that make up our country have little-known stories that need to be researched and told. Through newspapers, interviews, photographs, print and material culture people tell us who they are.The collection includes newspapers, oral histories, photographs, books, newsletters, legal documents, meeting minutes and other ephemeral materials.
Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007 This extraordinary resource on trans-Atlantic slavery and abolition brings together original manuscript and rare printed material from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Published in three sections between 2007 and 2009, this collection will prove invaluable for research. This project provides access to many thousands of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps and images.
Women's Magazine Archive I Women’s Magazine Archive 1 provides access to the complete archives of the foremost titles of this type, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. Topics covered in these collections include family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, culture, and many more; this material serves multiple research areas, from gender studies, social history, and the arts, through to education, politics, and marketing/media history. The magazines are all scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution color, ensuring that the original print artefacts are faithfully reproduced and that valuable non-article items, such as advertisements, are included. Detailed article-level indexing, with document feature flags, enables efficient searching and navigation of this content. Collection 1 titles: Better Homes & Gardens (1922 to 2005) Chatelaine (1928 to 2005) Good Housekeeping (1885 to 2005) Ladies’ Home Journal (1883 to 2005) Parents (1926 to 2005) Redbook (1903 to 2005)

Selected digital collections created by UVic Libraries

Asian Canadians in B.C.
From traditional English scholarly work and major media, we can find analysis and descriptions of Asian immigrant groups, often written from the perspective of outsiders. To understand the perspectives of community members, recent digital projects that highlight archival materials, as well as community newspapers and newsletters, are valuable resources.

British Colonist 1858-1980 A full text archive of the oldest newspaper in British Columbia. Since its inception in 1858 it has been known variously as the British Colonist, the Daily Colonist and other variants, and is still published today as the Victoria Times Colonist. It is an important primary source for the history of British Columbia and Vancouver Island.