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 window
Contains letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters in North America. Centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico. 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 window
Collection of original documents relating to Empire Studies from 1492-2007 sourced from libraries and archives around the world. Uses images of the texts rather than transcriptions. Features thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. 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 window
Serves as a foundation set for research involving early American history, literature, philosophy, religion, and more. 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 window
Provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Includes the immediate experiences of women from diaries and letters; from individuals writing from Colonial times to 1950. Represented are all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous and the not so famous.
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