Primary sources at UCSB
The California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA)
The California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, also known as CEMA, is a division of the Special Collections Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. CEMA is a permanent program that advances scholarship in ethnic studies through its varied collections of primary research materials. CEMA Collections
Digitized Collections and Finding Aids
These resources contain primary and archival sources from libraries and archival institutions in California including Calisphere, Online Archive of California, and UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive.
Digital Archives
- Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment This link opens in a new windowThis release of Early Encounters in North America (EENA) contains approximately 40,000 pages of material. When complete the product will include more than 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Particular care has been taken to index the material so that it can be used in new ways. For example, you can identify all encounters between the French and the Huron between 1650 and 1700. The collection is centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico. The papers may be browsed by author, source, year, peoples, places, images, fauna, flora, environment, personal events and cultural events.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new windowA collection of original documents relating to Empire Studies from 1492 - 2007 sourced from libraries and archives around the world. This project has been developed to encourage undergraduate work with rare primary documents. By using images of the texts rather than transcriptions, Empire Online enables students to connect with the past with greater immediacy. Each Section features thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The essays relate directly to the source material covered by the online publication with 30-50 hypertext links per essay to documentary evidence.
- Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639-1800) This link opens in a new windowBased on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans and enhanced by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography, the collection was first published by Readex in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society (AAS); For decades, the collection has served as a foundation set for research involving early American history, literature, philosophy, religion, and more. This database is an excellent resource for information about every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and just about any other topic imaginable.
- Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) This link opens in a new windowCovering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States, Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819) provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century. The continuation of Readex's Early American Imprints: Series I, this rich primary source database, based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and now supplemented by thousands of new items, allows students and scholars to explore the development of the American nation as never before. Designed for researchers of varying skill levels, the interface offers both simple and advanced searching as well as in-depth browsing within sixteen carefully indexed subject categories.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowNorth American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters; from individuals writing from Colonial times to 1950, plus 7,000 pages of previously unpublished materials. Drawn from more than 1,000 sources, including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, much of the material is in copyright. Represented are all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous and the not so famous. More than 1,500 biographies will enhance the use of the database. The database is searchable, and browsable by author, date, personal events and historical events.
What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources are
documents or materials that were produced during or near the time an event occurred.
They are the creator's thoughts or observations which have not been analyzed or
interpreted by others. Primary sources in literature may include materials such as:
letters
diaries and journals
pamphlets
interviews
autobiographies
newspaper articles
literary works
speeches
photographs