Guide to Online Primary Sources: Arts

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.

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)

Large collection of material that details the history of music, dance and theatre in the U.S.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

Asian American Drama contains 186 plays by 35 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.

Important dramatic works in streaming audio from the curated archive of the nation's premiere radio theatre company.

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.

Audio recordings from the Center for Music Experiment Archive. Includes conferences, computer music, and performances.

A collection of digitized images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world.

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.

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.

UCSD Department of Music recordings from 1967-2006 of degree-required concerts, faculty concerts, most class concerts, and other selected events.

The images fall into the broad categories of architecture, sculpture, terracotta, painting and numismatics.

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.

Over 1,300 hours of streaming video, including ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork

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.

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.

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.

Over 3900 pdf files for early Italian books and other printed materials, focusing on 17th Italian literature and 17th-18th century Italian theater.

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.

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.

A weekly newspaper covering current theatrical activities in London, the "provinces," and the U.S. Often includes one lengthy biographical story with related cover illustration

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.