Accessing and Using Digital Primary Source Materials for Research and Teaching

Free online access to digitized versions of primary source materials

• Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts (http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu/) enables users to find fully digitized manuscripts currently available on the Web.
• Civil Rights Digital Library (http://crdl.usg.edu/voci/go/crdl/home/) promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.
• Discovering American Women's History Online (http://library.mtsu.edu/digitalprojects/womenshistory.php) provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
• Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/portal/) features materials from European libraries, archives, museums and galleries.
• Library of Congress Digital Collections and Services (http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html) provides online access to print, pictorial, and audio-visual collections and other digital services, including American Memory (U.S. History), Global Gateway (international collections), and the Veterans Oral History Collection.
• LIFE photo archive (http://images.google.com/hosted/life) presents images from LIFE Magazine.
• OAIster (http://www.oaister.org/) is a union catalog of digital resources.
• University of Louisville Digital Collections (http://digital.library.louisville.edu/) include rare and unique images, documents, and oral histories from our archives, special collections, and other campus units.

Using primary sources in the classroom

• Illuminating the Manuscript Leaves: Lesson Plans (http://digital.library.louisville.edu/collections/mss/lesson.php) maps UofL's illuminated manuscript collection to Kentucky Education Reform Act standards, highlighting three of the digitized manuscripts.
• The Learning Page (http://memory.loc.gov/learn/) includes lessons, features, activities, and tips and tricks for using the Library of Congress American Memory collections in the classroom.
• Stories of the American South (http://www.lib.unc.edu/stories/), based on UNC’s archival collections, invite students and teachers to explore, reflect, and think critically about the people, places, and events that have shaped the American South.
• Teaching with Documents (http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/) contains reproducible copies of primary documents from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States, teaching activities correlated to the National History Standards and National Standards for Civics and Government, and cross-curricular connections.
• History Engine (http://historyengine.richmond.edu) features primary source based essays written by college students who are "doing the work...of an historian." Essays are approved by faculty before being added to the database.