Yale University Library Research Guides: English Language and Literature Research Guide: Doing Research with Primary Sources

Searching for primary sources with LUX

LUX is a transformative new platform that provides access to millions of records for objects, people, places, concepts, and events represented in Yale’s rich cultural heritage collections. Find and connect with the cultural heritage collections across Yale’s museums, archives, and libraries in new ways and all in one place.

When do I search Quicksearch and when do I search Archives at Yale?

There are multiple pathways for accessing primary sources at Yale. LUX is Yale's newly launched cross-collections platform that can search multiple collection repositories. However, you may wish to perform a more specific search.

If you are searching for a book (e.g. a first edition), a musical score, a film, or a sound recording, a good place to start is Yale Library's catalog. Use the discovery tool Quicksearch to search by title or author, then sort results to see works published earliest, or most recently, or in A-Z format.

If you are searching for an archival collection of documents, a writer's papers, for example, or archival items, or manuscripts, a good place to start is Archives at Yale.

Don't hesitate to get in touch with your librarian subject specialist if there is something you can't find!

What if I want to know which institution holds a particular archive?

For archives in the United States, a resource that can help identify where a particular collection is located is Archive Grid, a digital OCLC tool that allows you to search the special collections repositories of multiple institutions.

From OCLC: "ArchiveGrid includes over 7 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,400 archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies."

A Selection of Subject Specific Digital Primary Source Collections

British Online Archives
Digitized primary source collections support study and research of the territories colonised by Britain. Collections range from colonial, missionary and transatlantic relations to twentieth century political and social development, covering four-hundred years of world history. Each collection includes a detailed finding aid.
ProQuest News and Newspapers
Primarily U.S. historical newspapers covering the period from 1764 to the present; the resource includes some Canadian newspapers as well as a number of prominent black press newspapers. See catalog listing for a full record.
Opinion Archives
Provides full text searchable archives for journals of opinion, such as American spectator, Commentary, Commonweal, Dissent, Harper's magazine, LaFollette's magazine, Moment, The Nation, National review, The New leader, The New republic, New York review of books, The New Yorker, Orion magazine, The Progressive, Washington monthly, and The Weekly standard. Covers domestic and international politics, arts and culture from leading authors, poets, journalists, and statesmen.
Early European Books Online
Early European books contains printed European book collections from the origins of printing through the close of the seventeenth century. The collection builds upon and complements Early English Books Online (EEBO) and focuses on non-Anglophone materials; however, books in English or printed in the English-speaking world that are already represented in EEBO are not omitted from Early European Books where they form an integral element of the predominantly non-Anglophone collections that have been made available for digital capture. Full-color, high-resolution (400 ppi) facsimile images scanned directly from the original printed sources. Each item in the collection is captured in its entirety, complete with its binding, edges, endpapers, blank pages, and loose inserts.
Early English Books Online
Contains titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-title catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short title catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions. Also includes the Thomason tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English book tract supplement. Covers a wide variety of subjects, including English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science.
Literary print culture : the Stationers' Company archive, 1554-2007
Literary print culture, the Stationers' Company archive provides scanned images of materials from the London printing company's archive, including constitutional records, court records, membership records, financial records, trade records, general administrative records, and charities and property records.
State papers online: early modern government in Britain and Europe
State papers online offers original British historical materials from the period of Henry VIII to George III. Included are correspondence, reports, memoranda, parliamentary drafts from ambassadors, civil servants and provincial administrators. Subjects range from high level international politics and diplomacy to local crime.
Colonial State Papers
Colonial state papers provides access to papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Colonial State Papers integrates two important research tools as one service: Collection CO 1 from The National Archives (full name: Privy Council and related bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers); and Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739. Users can limit their searches to records that include scanned documents or can search all documents recorded in the Calendar.
Colonial Caribbean : Colonial Office files from the National Archives, UK
Digital resource covering three centuries of Caribbean history from 1624 to 1870 drawn from the archives of the British Colonial Office. Records include: administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Eighteenth century collections online includes titles printed in the United Kingdom, along with works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Material consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera. Subject categories include history and geography; fine arts and social sciences; medicine, science, and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; and general reference.
Nineteenth century literary society : the John Murray publishing archive
Nineteenth Century Literary Society makes available items from the archive of the historic John Murray publishing company. From book history to travel writing, politics to poetry, this database introduces a new repository for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Nineteenth century collections online features primary source collections of the nineteenth century. Includes a variety of material types: monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, and statistics.
Chidlren's Literature and Culture
Children's Literature and Culture contains more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s.
Archives of sexuality & gender. LGBTQ history and culture since 1940
Archives of sexuality & gender, LGTBQ history and culture since 1940 documents the experiences the LGBTQ community and members of minority groups within it

English Language and Literature Research Guide: Doing Research with Primary Sources

What are primary sources?

Searching for primary sources with LUX

When do I search Quicksearch and when do I search Archives at Yale?

What if I want to know which institution holds a particular archive?

A Selection of Subject Specific Digital Primary Source Collections

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