Primary sources include works of literature, newspaper archives, images, and films. Reference materials include dictionaries and encyclopedias.
You have access to a wide range of digital sources, and also printed materials in the main collections and our Special Collections.
Holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East.
Rare and hard-to-access printed sources, tracing the history of printing in Europe.
Electronic Enlightenment is a wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
An excellent resource for literary study and research, including references to scholarly books, theses, journals and other critical materials, and approximately 500,000 literary works from around the globe. Highly recommended for in depth research.
Note: ProQuest One Literature incorporates Literature Online (LION)
You have access to a wide range of online newspapers. A very handy overview of our newspaper content provides access to individual resources. See the list below for details of selected titles.
The TLS Historical Archive contains authoritative, expert reviews of books, films and music. Coverage includes the earliest issue from 1902 to 2014.
This resource provides recent content of the TLS (2010 onwards).
These resources are excellent for finding authoritative definitions of words and prhrases, and for researching the lives and contexts of writers and historical figures.
High quality bilingual dictionaries in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Provides definitions of words in English and the development of their use.
Via these resources you have access to millions of freeview TV and radio programmes, newsreels and screened performances of threatrical works.
Film adaptations of classic and contemporary plays.
Enables staff and students to record and watch freeview broadcasts, create clips from new and archived TV and radio broadcasts, and embed them into Blackboard/ presentations. Please note: it can only be accessed in the UK. It is each user’s responsibility to ensure that the materials made available are used strictly within the terms and conditions of the licence.
Movies, documentaries, foreign films, classic cinema, independent films and educational videos.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
These resources provide access to images of artworks, architecture, sculpture and related art forms.
A portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in teaching, learning and research in the UK.
See also the Newspapers/periodicals tab for newspaper content.
Access to millions of pages of primary source content from AM. Use the search bar to begin exploring, or browse individual primary source collections.
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
Explore the growth of the human rights movement during the second half of the twentieth century through the International Secretariat records of Amnesty International. The material within this collection is vital for studying the history of key political events, global social change and the development of a global movement for human rights covering themes including state violence, political prisoners, minority rights and more.
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.
An in-depth look into the creation of the East German state, living conditions, and its people. Documents included in this collection are predominantly instructions to and despatches from U.S. diplomatic, and consular personnel regarding political, military, economic, social, industrial, and other internal conditions and events in East Germany.
The First World War portal presents primary sources for the study of the Great War. From personal collections and rare printed material to military files, artwork and audio-visual files, content highlights the experiences of soldiers, civilians and governments on both sides of a conflict that shook the world.
Gale Reference Complete provides subscription access to the largest package or primary and secondary sources combining proprietary e-reference content from Gale. JCR-quality periodicals, literary criticism and full text literary works as well as rare primary source content from the vaults of the world's great libraries. Cross-search or browse the contents of over 1700 titles including: Encyclopaedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources covering all subjects.
This collection comprises 170 German-language titles of books and pamphlets. The collection presents anti-Semitism as an issue in politics, economics, religion, and education. Most of the writings date from the 1920s and 1930s and many are directly connected with Nazi groups.
Covering an extensive time period between 1490 and 2007, this collection brings together documents from libraries and archives across the UK and North America. From a largely colonial and thus Western and Eurocentric perspective, the material included focuses on the varieties of slavery, the legacies of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery in the twentieth century.
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a clear focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this highly-curated archive and database includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Women and Social Movements, International is a collection of primary materials. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
Search for primary sources among the Library's collections of printed editions of literary works, letters, diaries and facsimiles.
Video recording with sound and optional subtitles. Click on the image below to watch the recording.
The University's Special Collections encompass a wide range of material from different time periods and on numerous subjects.
Some material can be viewed online and you can consult physical items by appointment in the Special Collections Reading Room on the first floor of the Arts and Social Sciences Library.
Image: photograph of an artefact in Special Collections.