Online Resources for Primary Sources

The following online resources are primarily from the U.S. government. They provide extensive collections of primary source material with multiple media types.

U.S. Government Sources

• American Memory: http://memory.loc.gov
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): http://www.archives.gov
• Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov
• US Patent and Trademark Office: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
• Smithsonian Images Collection: http://siarchives.si.edu/collections
• NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/ and http://science.nasa.gov/
• U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/

Other Sources

• Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/
• Footnote: http://www.footnote.com/
• Digital History: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
• Eyewitness to History: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/
• Repositories of Primary Sources: http://webpages.uidaho.edu/special-collections/other.repositories.html

Educator Kathy Schrock has shared a collection of online resources for primary sources on her website. This collection accompanies her presentation entitled “A Three Hour Tour: Navigating Primary Source Material on the Internet.” View the slides as a PDF or as a Picasa Web Album.

The Primary Source Librarian offers information, advice, and support for teaching with primary sources. You will find links to primary source collections, primary source lesson plans, the latest in the world of digitization, and opportunities to share your own primary source experiences.