Primary Sources - Advanced Methods

UNI search engine for books and articles. For books change the "Material Type" option from "All items" to "Books" to turn OneSearch into the library catalog and look for books owned by Rod Library. To find primary materials set your search or results ("Publication Date") to the specific years of your study. Recently published books may also contain primary source material in the form of quotes, diaries, and letters.

Search the full text of over 30 million books.
Full view prior to 1930 and limited preview afterwards.

HathiTrust contains millions of pre-1930 books.
Use Advanced Search

Over 10 million digitized texts (e.g. books, magazines).
One of the few archives to offer very high quality color images of older publications.

(Books, Manuscripts, Magazines, and Newspapers)
The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history.

Archives in this library include:

      LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II

      Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century

      International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture

Before using the New York Times TimeMachine - UNI students and faculty must register for a personal "all access" pass for the New York Times. Click here to create a UNI personal "all access" academic pass.

Browse the New York Times by date using the TimesMachine "Select an Issue" option.

Search historical issues of the New York times by using the search option at the top of the TimesMachine page.

To download a historical New York times article older than 1980:

1. click on the article

2. click on the "CONTINUE READING: PDF" option that pops up on the lefthand side of the screen


WARNING - Advertisements cannot be downloaded - but can be viewed in detail using the "+" function (expand view) in the TimesMachine viewer.

The Library of Congress has archived over 3,000 different U.S. historical newspapers from 1789 to 1963. There are nearly 100 Iowa newspapers available dating from 1836 to 1924.

Advanced Search will also allow you to search for articles that contain two words that are within a specified number of words of each other.

Advanced Search allows searching of a specific newspaper.
Advanced Search can be focused by date/year, by Front page or specific page, and language.
Advanced Search can be focused by looking for “Any” one of multiple words entered, “All” of the words entered, a specific “Phrase”.

Browse papers by choosing “All Digitized Newspapers” option and then limiting by state or ethnicity or language.

Very good for local and regional U.S. and Iowa news. Coverage varies by year and location. Use the "Advanced Search" option beneath the search blanks. Advanced Search will allow you to limit by date and geographic location.

Digitized historical newspapers from state archives (freely available), Chronicling America (freely available), and Newspaper Archive (UNI only)

Article and full-page access to the following papers: Atlanta Daily World (1931-2010), Chicago Defender (1909-2010), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), Michigan Chronicle (Detroit) (1939-2010), and the New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993). To access other Black newspapers and magazines click on the Archives (primary sources) tab at the top-left hand corner of this page.

Includes: Better Homes and Gardens (1922-2005) --- Chatelaine (1928-2005) --- Cosmopolitan (1886-2005) --- Essence (1970-present) --- Good Housekeeping (1885-2005) --- Home Journal (1846-1901) --- Ladies’ Home Journal (1885-2005) --- Parents’ Magazine (1926-2005) --- Redbook (1905-2005) --- Seventeen (1944-2005) --- Town & Country (1901-2005) --- Woman’s Day (1937-2005) --- Women’s International Network News (1975-2003)

Readers' Guide does NOT provide the article - just information about the article - you must take that information and locate the articles yourself. Use the Magazine Finder to find the article online or in print (Google - Rod Library Magazine Finder - or visit https://guides.lib.uni.edu/historical-magazines).

On the Magazine Finder website you will find:
1. Digitized subject indexes (HathiTrust) to magazines published from 1802-1881, 1882-1886, and 1887-1892
2. Abbreviation guides for the magazines listed in Poole's Index.
Poole's Index does NOT provide the article - just information about the article - you must take that information and locate the articles yourself. Use the Magazine Finder to find the article online or in print (Google - Rod Library Magazine Finder - or visit https://guides.lib.uni.edu/historical-magazines/1802-1890.

Search the full text of hundreds of magazines.
Full view prior to 1930 and limited preview afterwards.

HathiTrust contains hundreds of pre-1930 magazines. Use Advanced Search and then limit results using the "Serial" option on the bottom left-hand side of the results page.

Limit search results by Date and by Type (e.g., image, text)

More than 300 different digital collections.
Limit your search by Subject or Format.

Be sure to check "Archived Materials Online".
Be sure to uncheck "Archival Descriptions"

JSTOR Early Journal Content provides free access to articles published prior to 1930 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere. JSTOR provides free access to more modern open access journal articles.

After searching limit results by publication date and by primary source content type: images or serials or documents or books

Includes the following Collections: American Prison Newspapers, HIV AIDS & the Arts, Student Activism on Campus, and Independent Voices.

There are thousands of publicly available digital archives that could contain useful primary source material for your project. Focused searches using powerful Google commands can locate digital collections based on the descriptions of archives.