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Digital Collections

10 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users  - Open Access

So many things have been digitized in the last decade, and many are in databases not available to the general public, but purchased by the library. These digital collections you will find listed in our various subject guides. But a lot has been made available for free through the Internet. Here is a list of just a few of the major collections.

American Memory 

Multimedia collections from the Library of Congress of digitized documents, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures, and texts. Over 100 collections, including, for example, African-American pamphlets, Chautauqua flyers, Depression photographs, Coca-Cola advertising, and the papers of Alexander Graham Bell, to name just a few.

Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy

A digital collection of important documents in American history, politics and government from the 18th century to the present day.

DSpace

An open-source solution for accessing, managing and preserving scholarly works.

Electronic Texts and Primary Sources

An extensive list of electronic text sites from the Digital Librarian.

HathiTrust Digital Library 

HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.

Historical Documents

Early congressional documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, other important documents that can be browsed or searched.

Making of America (Cornell University) 

Making of America (University of Michigan) 

A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the ante-bellum period through Reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Includes over 4 million page images, representing close to 13,000 volumes of primary source materials, including books and periodicals. Cornell University has focused on the major journal literature of the period. The University of Michigan has focused on monographs.

SunSite Digital Collections

Links to digital collections from the Berkeley Digital Library.

WMU Digitized Collections

This is a growing resource of digital collections from WMU such as photographs, maps, diaries, artwork, etc. The include Ward Morgan Photography Collection, Civil War diaries, the African American History Book, Index Map Collection, Caroline Bartlett Crane Everyman’s House Collection, and a Medieval document sampler.

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