Research Guides: Archives and Primary Sources: Get Started

What is an archive?

Archives provide firsthand accounts, data, and evidence. They often include materials like photographs, letters or memos, reports, audio recordings, interviews, first edition memorabilia, original clothing or costume artifacts; original artifacts that reflect the authenticity of time, place, or culture; legal and legislative documents, and oral histories. While we often associate archives with much older/ historic documents, the key to an archive is often continuity in representation across a collection. Even living people and current societies boast archives - including Beyoncé and Disney - to document and preserve a curated version of their own stories.

Posthumously, archives for individuals are curated by 'experts' - researchers, historians, biographers - who have either followed or studied a person, group, culture, or industry, and likely spent significant time and money collecting artifacts that represent a person, place, time, culture, or movement. Increasingly throughout the 21st Century, archives digitize and publish online items in their collections to allow for greater reach. This also includes museums, special collections libraries, and National Parks.

For example, even the relatively small Women's Rights National Park in Seneca Falls NY, offers a virtual tour of the structures that housed the first women's rights' convention in 1848. Take a look at the featured online archives below, and then browse through the pages on the left to see all that Goucher has to offer for archival and primary research!

Notable Online Archives

Smithsonian National Archives
In its phsyical space, the Smithsonian Archives span over 152,000 cubic feet, and features collections for Art, Gardens, Folklife, the Anacostia Community and more, much of which is now available for online viewing.
The Internet Archive
The Internet Archive provides access to digital resources in their original, unaltered form, as well as subsequent updates. It offers access to free text, movies, software, music, and websites - even websites that have expired/ are no longer active or interactive through its 'Wayback Machine'. This archive features collections for various world religions' sermons; news and public affairs; social media videos; television; video games; anime; microfilm; and even mixtapes! What happens online, STAYS online!
The National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration provides online access to historically relevant documents reflecting people, time, and place across the United States. NARA operates under the Freedom of Information Act, so patrons can access records pertaining to family members military service, and other government documents. This archive also provides resources for educators looking to use historic and primary content as teaching aides. Additionally, the National Archives often calls for volunteer 'Citizen Archivists' - average citizens who may be able to contribute to a new or evolving collection.
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
With the support of the Library of Congress and GBH (Great Blue Hill, Boston), this archive preserves content from across Public Broadcasting networks such as PBS, and NPR - both national and local affiliates. It includes audio and video clips from radio interviews to beloved show and documentary content. Some notable collections include '1964 Interviews'; 'Rock n Roll'; 'Black Journal'; 'Ken Burns' The Civil War Interviews'; 'Prospects of Mankind with Eleanor Roosevelt'; and 'OutCasting - public radio's LGBTQ yough programs'; among it's 50,000 hours of audio and video content. AAPB also offers education resources, and its 'FIX IT+' program allows average citizens to help make historic content accessible by editing computer-generated transcripts.