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History 498A: Queer History USA

A guide to library sources for your research paper. Also reviews some basic library research concepts that should have been covered in your History 200 course.

Digital Collections

You will find that there are dozens (possibly hundreds) of digital collections containing sources relevant to this course; many of these collections are listed here. Some are the work of "community archives" or "counter-archives", which is to say archives begun and operated outside a traditional, institutional setting. For more information on archives, and the role of archives in historical research, see the section below on Special Collections.

On this page are smaller collections, or large but less directly-relevant collections that might nevertheless have useful sources. Many of these collections are digitized from archival collections (for more information on which see the section below on Archives and Special Collections.

Many of these collections are digitized from archival collections (for more information on which see the section below on Archives and Special Collections.

Many of these collections are digitized from archival collections (for more information on which see the section below on Archives and Special Collections.

Many of these collections are digitized from archival collections (for more information on which see the section below on Archives and Special Collections.

Collections in Other Formats

Many of the collections in this section are archives (mostly organizational or personal archives) that have been microfilmed. You will be meeting with somebody from the University Archives after today's session, and that person will go into greater detail on archival organization. For more on archives, see the section below on Special Collections

Archives and Special Collections

Special collections bring together documents that share some common characteristic, such as rarity, format, subject, or provenance. Rare book libraries and archives are two common types of special collections.

Rare book libraries usually collect published sources, but may also collect manuscripts and other unpublished sources, especially literary manuscripts and manuscripts that relate to the library's rare book collections. Rare book libraries are usually organized like other libraries described in this guide, and are often attached to a research or academic library.

Archives, on the other hand, are organized quite differently than libraries. This difference is due to several factors, including the following:

  • The massive quantity of documents acquired by archives (an archive will usually measure the size of its collection by linear feet rather than by number of volumes)
  • The special nature of archival collections (which sometimes include access restrictions due to privacy rights of people who are the subjects of the documents)
  • The evidentiary value of the collection's arrangement as that arrangement was developed by the collection's original creators and users. 

Unlike library collections, which are organized by subject, archival collections are organized by provenance, and to whatever extent possible the archive will attempt "to maintain the integrity of records in relation to their documentary, provenancial, functional, and jurisdictional contexts",1 by ensuring that the documents remain organized the way they were organized at the time of their creation, or the time of their accession into the archive.

Other types of documents found in special collections include "maps, games, original works of art, realia (nonbook objects, such as furniture, weaponry, or locks of hair), textiles, audiovisual materials, and digital materials".2

Some examples of special collections at the University of Illinois Library:

Archives within traveling distance:

Notes

1. Joanne Evans, Sue McKemmish, and Barbara Reed, "Archival Arrangement and Description," in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 4th ed., ed.  John D. McDonald and Michael Levine-Clark (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2017), 118.

2. Lynne M. Thomas, "Special Collections," in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 4th ed., ed.  John D. McDonald and Michael Levine-Clark (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2017), 4335.