Primary Sources
This guide will provide more information about finding primary sources appropriate for your discipline and area of research.
Art
Primary sources in the arts are the original works of an artist and can include an artist's photographs, artwork, films, music, or artifacts. The following databases can be utilized to find these materials.
For more research assistance, see the Art & Art History Guide guide.
Image: Curling in High Park, Toronto
- Art & Artists in Exhibition: Vancouver 1890 - 1950 This link opens in a new windowThis website has compiled information from original exhibition catalogues, with additional information from contemporary newspaper articles and various other sources. The only artists and artworks listed are those known to have been shown in exhibition in Vancouver between 1890 and 1950, based on available information.There are currently 1,800 separate web pages in the project, containing an index of 1,830 artists who exhibited in Vancouver between 1890 and 1950; 1,250 artist mini-biographies; a list of 330 art exhibitions with 100 exhibition catalogues completely transcribed detailing over 8,500 individual artworks; an index of over 170 arts-related groups, with numerous articles on them; and also numerous reviews, artists' statements, letters, and other information. An extensive list of references is included, as well as a number of occasional papers on various art related matters.
- Art Abstracts This link opens in a new windowThis database indexes arts publications from 1929 to the present.Art Abstracts, produced by The H.W. Wilson Company, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. In addition to articles, Art Abstracts indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals. Indexing coverage begins with September 1984 and abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. The abstracts range from 50 to 300 words and describe the content and scope of the source articles.
- Coverage is from 1929 to present.
- Artefacts CanadaContains millions of collection records and over 200,000 images from hundreds of Canadian museums, including images of art objects, of social history artifacts, of biological samples, and of archaeological digs from across Canada.
- ARTEXTE This link opens in a new windowArtexte's print and digital document collection holds over 27,000 documents covering the visual arts from 1965 to the present, with an emphasis on the art of Canada and Quebec.Canadian visual art and artists, including a bibliographic database of art publications, a public art database, and an index to artist files.
- Coverage is from 1965 to the present.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowThe ARTstor Digital Library is an image database featuring a range of images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists in one easily-navigated repository. It is the most comprehensive image resource available for educational and scholarly use, with many rare and important collections available nowhere else.Artstor features millions of high-quality images and media from some of the world’s top photo archives, museums, libraries, scholars, and artists, including rare materials not available anywhere else. Artstor’s collections also include Open Access collections from partner museums freely available to all. All content in Artstor is rights-cleared for education and research — you are free to use it in classroom instruction and handouts, presentations, student assignments, and other noncommercial educational and scholarly activities.
- Black thought and culture This link opens in a new windowBlack Thought and Culture contains 1,303 sources with 1,210 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. The ideas of over 1,000 authors present an evolving and complex view of what it is to be black in America.
- British Columbia Artists This link opens in a new windowThis database provides reference information about artists who have, or who are working in British Columbia dating from the 1700s to the present. Information provided includes exhibition catalogues, books, newspaper reviews, archival records, etc.British Columbia Artists (BCA) is an extensive digital finding aid to reference information about more than 11,300 artists who worked - or who are working - in British Columbia, from the 1700s to the present. Artists are listed in the index if there is a bibliographic reference to their work, which might be an exhibition catalogue, book, prospectus, newspaper review, archival record, or other type of recorded information. The project is an extension of the original digital project Art & Artists in Exhibition: Vancouver 1890 - 1950 (AAEV) that focused on artists who exhibited their work in Vancouver only, prior to 1950. This specific location and date range produced an artificial barrier to adding information to the project.
- CBC ArchivesDigital archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) featuring multimedia clips from notable events, interviews, etc.
- CRL library catalog This link opens in a new windowThe approximately five million newspapers, journals, books, pamphlets, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other resources held by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) support original research and teaching. While these shared collections are largely paper and microform, CRL provides online access to a continually expanding body of digital materials. The "Topic Guides" section of the website is an excellent place to start as it has a number of topic guides organized by discipline or region.
- Access digitized content directly through CRL online catalog request other material through UofC Interlibrary Loans
Membership in Center for Research Libraries provides access to a wide range of uncommon materials, with a focus on news, law and government, finance, the history of science, technology and engineering, and the history and economics of agriculture. The approximately five million newspapers, journals, books, pamphlets, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other resources held by CRL support original research and teaching. CRL holdings include materials from all world regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central, South and Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. While these shared collections are largely paper and microform, CRL provides online access to a continually expanding body of digital materials. CRL digital collections of primary source materials support research and teaching in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. - Gale Primary sources This link opens in a new windowThe Gale Primary Sources cross-search interface provides access to millions of pages of content spanning many centuries and geographic regions. Users can explore a wide range of content including monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, photographs, maps, and more.Gale Primary Sources is a universal research experience that combines Gale's acclaimed digital archives in a single cross-search interface. This powerful platform greatly enhances the research experience for students and researchers by broadening their discovery of primary source documents through the use of multiple search options and research tools. The Gale Primary Sources cross-search interface provides access to millions of pages of content spanning many centuries and geographic regions. Users can explore a wide range of content including monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, photographs, maps, and more. As Gale continues to create additional digital archives, we will automatically add the content to the Gale Primary Sources cross-search experience.
- Grand Tour (The) This link opens in a new windowThis collection of manuscript, visual and printed works allows scholars to compare a range of sources on the history of travel for the first time, including many from private or neglected collections. This includes letters; diaries and journals; account books; printed guidebooks; published travel writing; paintings and sketches; architectural drawings and maps.These accounts of the English abroad, c1550-1850, highlight the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy. This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works allows scholars to compare a range of sources on the history of travel for the first time, including many from private or neglected collections. We include letters; diaries and journals; account books; printed guidebooks; published travel writing; paintings and sketches; architectural drawings and maps. The Grand Tour is a wonderful source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transportation, money, communications, food and drink, health and sex. The material also covers European political and religious life, British diplomacy; life at court, and social customs on the Continent, and is an invaluable resource for the study of Europe's urban spaces. There is a wealth of detail about cities such as Paris, Rome, Florence and Geneva, including written accounts and visual representations of street life, architecture and urban planning.
- Hathi Trust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowHathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform. It provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives. HathiTrust contains a number of collections, organized by subject topic and compiled by university institutions. It is recommended you start here to narrow your search.As a digital repository for the nation's great research libraries, HathiTrust brings together the immense collections of partner institutions. It was initially conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the University of California system, and the University of Virginia to establish a repository for those universities to archive and share their digitized collections, and quickly expanded to include additional partners with fast growing treasure of digitized collections.
- Index to Art in Canada to 1930The Index to Art in Canada to 1930 provides an index to works of art listed in Canadian exhibition, auction and collection catalogues, from 1823 (the date of the earliest catalogue so far identified) up to and including 1930.
Libraries and Archives Canada
- Libraries and Archives Canada Collection SearchLibraries and Archives Canada is currently in the process of updating their website and search functions. Some of these links may therefore expire in the coming months. Please take a look at the following document that guides users through searching the collection for primary source material
- Libraries and Archives Canada- Collection SearchCanada's national collection of books, historical documents, government records, photos, films, maps, music... and more.
- About Searching Collections - Libraries and Archives CanadaThis guide will walk you through a variety of FAQ's about searching collections on Libraries and Archives Canada such as: What is a Collection Search? What will I find? and what information will be yielded under each search tab.
- Canadian Feature Film Database- Libraries and Archives CanadaThe Canadian Feature Film database is based on the printed publication Canadian Feature Film Index begun in 1972.
The database compiles the principal credits of every Canadian feature film from 1913 to 2006; establishes a list of Canadian feature films from published information up to 2006; and features over 4,300 films. - Canadian Music Periodical Index- Libraries and Archives CanadaThe Canadian Music Periodical Index (CMPI) is an index of articles from Canadian music periodicals. Full texts of articles are not available from this site, but you can inquire about them in person at LAC or at your local library.
The CMPI database includes over 37,000 entries on articles dating from the late-19th century to the present day. Canadian music journals, newsletters and magazines are represented here, almost 200 of which are currently active and continue to be indexed. - Canadian Poetry Audio Archives- Libraries and Archives CanadaThe Canadian Poetry Audio Archives is Canada's first online bilingual poetry audio archive.
The database contains a sampling of audio recordings of Canada's most acclaimed poets reading from their works, transcripts of poems and photographs. - Disc-O-Logue- Libraries and Archives CanadaThe Disc-O-Logue archive consists of information compiled by Louise Lamothe from 1958 to 1985 on French-language popular music recordings available in Canada on LPs and 45-rpm records.
There are four main features to the archive: the Disc-O-Logue catalogues issued annually from 1962 to 1979, the master card catalogue (1958-1985), record release information and the Best Sellers lists - Film, Video and Sound Databases- Libraries and Archives CanadaLAC has acquired, through donations and planned acquisition, over 500,000 hours of film, video and sound recordings that deal mostly with Canada. This search tool provides about 470,000 descriptions of audiovisual documents.
- Maps, Plans and Charts (cartographic material, architectural drawings)- Libraries and Archives CanadaA curated collection of maps, plans, and charts containing approx. 40 000 charts from a variety of different fonds.Primary record is located here: http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3823528&lang=eng
- Rare Book Illustrations Before 1800- Libraries and Archives CanadaThe Rare Book Illustrations database contains 550 images (mostly engravings) from Library and Archives Canada's Rare Book Collection. All of the images are taken from books, often exploration or missionary narratives, published before the year 1800.
These particular images have been selected because they depict geography that is now part of Canada or events that are significant in Canadian history. The most unique feature of this site is that it tracks re-engravings—or variants—of certain images over time. - Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings- Libraries and Archives CanadaVirtual Gramophone is a multimedia website devoted to the early days of Canadian recorded sound, providing an overview of the 78-rpm era in Canada. The database contains information for 78-rpm and cylinder recordings released in Canada from 1900 to 1950, as well as foreign recordings featuring Canadian artists and/or compositions. Each database record provides information about an original recording, such as its title and performer, relevant dates, and details about the label and disc.
If you need further assistance for navigating the Libraries and Archives Canada collections please Consult a Librarian for assistance.
- Last Updated: Jan 9, 2025 8:52 AM
- URL: https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/primarysources
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Subjects: History, History-Primary Sources, Library & Information Science, Reference Tools, Research, Writing
Tags: History, primary sources