LibGuides: VIS 130: Special Projects in Visual Arts: Find Primary Sources in the Arts

Links to collections

African American Song
Vintage jazz, blues, ragtime, stage, gospel and other forms of African American musical expression, with links to texts and images from the original recording releases.
Alexander Street Press
Several distinct audio and video collections, including: American History in Video; Audio Drama-The L.A. Theatre Works Collection; Dance in Video; Ethnographic Video Online; LGBT Studies in Video; LGBT Thought and Culture; Meet the Press; Music Online (American Song; Classical Music Library; Classical Music in Video; Classical Scores Library; Contemporary World Music; Jazz Music Library; Opera in Video; Popular Music Library; Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries); Silent Film; The March of Time; Theatre in Video; World History in Video; World Newsreels Online (1929–1966)
American Song
A growing database that will contain 50,000 tracks of music from America's past. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.
American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment
"A multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings ... This collection illustrates the vibrant and diverse forms of popular entertainment, especially vaudeville, that thrived from 1870-1920."
AP Images
With millions of images dating back more than 150 years, this is one of the world's largest archives of historical & current imagery. Includes news, entertainment, arts, business, and sports coverage from AP and selected partners. Updated every minute.
Archives of American Art
Includes "papers of artists, dealers, critics and curators, comprising thousands of letters, photographs, diaries, sketches, writings, rare published materials, and other documents." From the Smithsonian Institution.

ARTstor
Library of over 2.5 million digital images and their corresponding metadata. Covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture

Asian American Drama
Asian American Drama contains 186 plays by 35 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.
Audio Drama: the L.A. Theatre Works Collection
Important dramatic works in streaming audio from the curated archive of the nation's premiere radio theatre company.

Berg Fashion Library
The Berg Fashion Library includes 13,000 images, the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, free lesson plans, ~150 eBooks, reference works, an interactive timeline, a new exhibition archive, and more. Provides integrated text and image content on world dress and fashion throughout history. Browsable by time period and by place.
Our subscription does not include the Fairchild Books Library.

Black Drama, 1850 to Present
Black Drama contains 908 plays by 171 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.When complete, the collection will include more than 1,200 plays.
Center for Music Experiment Recordings Archives
Audio recordings from the Center for Music Experiment Archive. Includes conferences, computer music, and performances.
Cities and Buildings Database
A collection of digitized images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world.
Classical Music Library
Over 52,000 audio tracks of classical music from the Medieval to the contemporary, with chamber music, symphonies, choral music, solo vocal and instrumental, and other forms.
Database of Recorded American Music
A wide spectrum of American (USA) music, from 19th century to contemporary compositions, electronic music, folk, jazz, Native American music, opera and musical theater. The audio tracks are linked to related scholarly texts.
Department of Music Concert Archive
UCSD Department of Music recordings from 1967-2006 of degree-required concerts, faculty concerts, most class concerts, and other selected events.
Digital South Asia Library
The images fall into the broad categories of architecture, sculpture, terracotta, painting and numismatics.
Discover Islamic Art
With support of the European Union, this "Biggest Islamic Art Museum of the World" contains digitized images from more than 40 museums in 14 countries.
Ethnographic Video Online
Over 1,300 hours of streaming video, including ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork
Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939
This site presents primary source documents of theatrical productions sponsored under the Works Project Administration's (WPA) Federal Theatre Project (FTP) from 1935 to 1939. Approximately 13,000 images are presented.
Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project
Digital images of the largest collection of material on professional theatre and dramatic performance in the age of Shakespeare. Includes letters, bills of sale, court orders, poems and other material dated 1544-1662.
Library of Congress Digital Collections: Performing Arts
Large collection of material that details the history of music, dance and theatre in the U.S.

National Jukebox
The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.

Naxos Music Library
Primarily classical music, over 258,000 tracks as well as notes on the music or composers. Includes recordings from Naxos and several smaller labels. New titles are added monthly.

North American Theatre Online
North American Theatre Online is a comprehensive reference work covering all aspects of the Canadian and American Theatre. It includes some 40,000 pages of major reference materials, together with records to approximately 30,000 plays, 57,000 people, 5,400 theatres, 22,000 productions, and 2,500 production companies. Each year we'll add more than 20,000 new records. The collection also includes approximately 10,500 images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other resources.

OPAL Libri Antichi
Over 3900 pdf files for early Italian books and other printed materials, focusing on 17th Italian literature and 17th-18th century Italian theater.
Roger Reynolds Ping Collection
Ping is a 1968 multimedia work by Roger Reynolds on a text by Samuel Beckett. It involves slide projections, a film of a Butoh dancer made in Japan, pre-recorded electro-acoustic sound, live electronic processing, and a score for flute, percussion, and piano. This collection is an illustrative portion of the components and related documentation from the 1968 and 2011 performances at UCSD.
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries
Audio tracks and related texts documenting the world's musical traditions, also spoken word recordings such as political speeches, as well as nature sounds. The music ranges from remote cultures worldwide to famous folk musicians. Over 35,000 tracks.

Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels
Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels is a scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels.
Vogue Archive
The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names.

World Digital Library: Arts
Collection of print and visual resources. Use limiters in left column to focus search on a specific geography, date range, topic or type of resource.

Primary sources by vendor

Adam Matthew Explorer
Adam Matthew publishes unique primary source collections from archives around the world. The categorized collections cover many contemporary subjects such as culture, war, lifestyles, business technology and sociopolitical development in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Search across all of UC San Diego's Adam Matthew archival collections. We also have API access to our licensed Adam Matthew databases.

Collections include:

African American Communities
Age of Exploration
America in World War Two:Oral Histories and Personal Accounts
American History, 1493-1945
American Indian Histories and Cultures
American Indian Newspapers
American West
Apartheid South Africa,1948-1980
China, America and the Pacific
China: Culture and Society
China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
Church Missionary Society Periodicals
Colonial America
Colonial Caribbean
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
Confidential Print: Middle East
Confidential Print: North America
Defining Gender
East India Company
Eighteenth Century Drama
Eighteenth Century Journals
Empire Online
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
Everyday Life and Women in America
First World War Portal
Food and Drink in History
Foreign Office Files China 1919-1980
Foreign Office Files India, Pakistan and Afghanistan,1947-1980
Foreign Office Files Japan, 1919-1952
Foreign Office Files Middle East, 1971-1981
Foreign Office Files South East Asia, 1963-1980
Frontier Life
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Global Commodities
India, Raj and Empire
Interwar Culture
J. Walter Thompson:Advertising America
Jewish Life in America
Leisure Travel and Mass Culture
Life at Sea: Seafaring in the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1600-1900
Literary Manuscripts Berg
Literary Manuscripts Leeds
Literary Print Culture
London Low Life
Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965
Mass Observation Online
Medical Services and Warfare
Medieval Family Life
Medieval Travel Writing
Meiji Japan
Migration to New Worlds
Perdita Manuscripts, 1500-1700
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
Race Relations in America
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
Service Newspapers of World War Two
Sex and Sexuality
Shakespeare in Performance
Shakespeare's Globe Archive
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
Socialism on Film
The Grand Tour
The Nixon Years, 1969-1974
Trade Catalogues and the American Home
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorians on Film. Entertainment, Innovation & Everyday Life
Virginia Company Archives
Women in the National Archives (UK)
World's Fairs
Alexander Street Press
Single interface to search for primary sources, streaming video and audio content, and more from the Alexander Street Press databases.
60 Minutes: 1997-2014
African Diaspora, 1860-Present
American History in Video
Anthropological Fieldwork Online
Anthropology Online
Asian American Drama
Asian Film Online
Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection
Black Drama
Black Drama: Second Edition
Black Drama: Third Edition
Black Thought and Culture
Border and Migration Studies Online
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Civil War Letters and Diaries
Contemporary World Drama
Dance Online: Dance in Video
Dance Online: Dance Studies Collection
Disability in the Modern World
Early Encounters in North America
Early Experiences in Australasia: Primary Sources and Personal Narratives.1788-1901
Engineering Case Studies Online
Environmental Issues Online
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online
Ethnographic Video Online
Ethnographic Video Online, Teaching Edition
Film Scripts Online
Food Studies Online
Human Rights Studies Online
LGBT Studies in Video
LGBT Thought and Culture
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries
Meet the Press
Music Online: African American Music Reference
Music Online: American Music
Music Online: Classical Music in Video
Music Online: Classical Music Library
Music Online: Classical Scores Library
Music Online: Contemporary World Music
Music Online: Jazz Music Library
Music Online: Listening
Music Online: Music Periodicals of the 19th Century
Music Online: Opera in Video
Music Online: Popular Music Library
Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries
Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
North American Indian Drama
North American Indian Thought and Culture
North American Women's Drama
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Performance Design Archive Online
Psychological Experiments Online
Revolution and Protest Online
Security Issues Online
Silent Film Online
The Docuseek2 Complete Collection: Second Edition
The March of Time
Theatre in Context Collection
Theatre in Video: Volume I
Twentieth Century North American Drama
Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume I: Christianity
Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume II: Islam
Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume III: Judaism
Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume IV: Eastern Religions
Underground and Independent Comics
Women and Social Movements in the United States,1600-2000
Women and Social Movements, International
Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820
World History in Video
World Newsreels Online: 1929–1966
Gale Primary Sources
Gale Artemis unites Gale's digital archives, allowing researchers to uncover primary source documents in archives where they may not have thought to look. Includes term frequencies, term clusters, and basic visualizations.
Includes:
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection
Archives Unbound
Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity
The Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2011
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
The Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2010
The Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926
The Making of the Modern World
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers
The Sunday Times Digital Archive
The Times Digital Archive
U.S. Declassified Documents Online