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.

(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

Primary news sources for modern history.

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.

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)

To focus your search results on "news" click on either: Magazines or Newspapers

Use Advanced Search to improve your search.
Limit search results to magazines or newspapers (the default is Academic Journals).

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)

To focus your search results on "news" click on either: Magazines or Newspapers

Use Advanced Search to improve your search.
Limit search results to magazines or newspapers (the default is Academic Journals).

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).

Major news magazine of the 20th century.
PDF images of articles from 1923 to 2000

Photo-rich news magazine.
PDF images of articles from 1936 to 2000

Business and news magazine.
PDF images of articles from 1930 to 2000

Google Books Magazine collection offers free access to over one hundred magazines. Though many are obscure, niche, unusual and rather recent (1980s-1990s) this collection also offers extensive runs of a few mainstream magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Life. This collection is particularly notable for the runs of magazines published for and about the African American community including Black Enterprise, Black World (Negro Digest), Crisis, Ebony, Ebony Jr., and Jet

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"

"Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century." --- JSTOR (REVEAL DIGITAL)

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.