How do I find primary sources?

Multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library of Congress's Americana collections. Part of the National Digital Library Program.

The ARTFL implementation of the FRANTEXT database (formerly the Trsor de la Langue Franaise) consists of over 2900 texts, ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing. The eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries are about equally represented, with a smaller selection of seventeenth century texts as well as some medieval and Renaissance texts. Genres include novels, poetry, theater, journalism, essays, correspondence, and treatises. Subjects include literary criticism, biology, history, economics, and philosophy. In most cases standard scholarly editions were used in converting the text into machine-readable form, and the data contain page references to these editions.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. Over 200 libraries worldwide have contributed to EEBO. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions specially created for the product.

Diverse array of printed sources from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Opens the door to some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books. All works printed in Europe before 1701, regardless of language, fall within the scope of the project, together with all pre-1701 works in European languages printed further afield.
We have access to Collections 1-6, and 12,
Collection 15: Revolution and Reformation: Science and Religion in the Early Modern Period
Collection 17: Statecraft and Law in Early Modern France
Collection 18: History & Chronicles from the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal
Collection 19: Voyages & Imagination Travel
Collection 20: French Spiritual Life: Religious renewal in early modern France
Collection 21: Peace and Governance
Collection 23: Education, Society and Cultural Life

ECCO is a fully text-searchable corpus of books, pamphlets and broadsides in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800. It is is a digitization of the eighteenth-century section of the works catalogued in the English Short-title Catalogue (ESTC). The ESTC project has been recording all works published or printed in Britain, Ireland, territories under British colonial rule, and the United States. It also catalogues material printed elsewhere which contains significant text in English, Welsh, Irish..

Contains letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, of immigrants to the United States and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Includes 342 authors and approximately 37,500 pages of material, including some audio material.