Tag: primary sources
Primary Sources: Oriental Economist Digital Archive
Here’s a description from the California Digital Library: “The Oriental Economist Digital Archive is an online version of the print journal Oriental Economist originally published monthly between 1934 and 1985 and weekly between January 1946 and August 1952 in Japan (in 874 volumes in 44,000 pages). It is one of the very few commercial journals in English with a focus on the Asian economy that lasted over 50 years from the pre-war period. While the Oriental Economist included some translations of articles published in the Japanese journal Tōyō Keizai Shinpō (1895-1960) /Shūkan Tōyō Keizai (1960-present), it also published its original contents.”
For more information about this resource, please check at: https://japanknowledge.com/en/ contents/orientaleconomist/index.html.
Primary sources: World Newspaper Archive: African Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1925
As a charter participant in the World Newspaper Archive program conducted by the Center for Research Libraries, we have access to the newly released module African Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1925. This resource contains 340,000 pages of content from African newspapers published between 1835 and 1925, offering unique coverage of nearly a century of African history. The collection features nearly 40 titles from Algeria, Angola, Liberia, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. Titles were selected from CRL and member collections to complement and extend the range of material available in African Newspapers, Series 1. Included are such notable publications as:
• Africa’s Luminary (Monrovia, Liberia)
• Cape Daily Telegraph (Port Elizabeth, South Africa)
• Cape Times (Cape Town, South Africa)
• O Moçambique (Mozambique)
• Munno (Kampala, Uganda)
• Nigerian Times (Lagos, Nigeria)
Resource: UK Government Web Archive
A collaboration between the National Archives and Gov.uk, the UK Government Web Archive gathers every publicly available website hosted by the British government since 1996. The contents are browsable and searchable and include Twitter posts, YouTube videos, and over a billion documents.
Primary Sources: Records of the US Department of State for Panama & Brazil
The Library has recently acquired online access to these government documents:
Panama: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1950-1963
Documents in this collection trace U.S.-Panamanian relations during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations. Issues relating to shipping and the significance of the Panama Canal during the Cold War include: “Panama Stymies Use of Her Flag in Vietminh Trade … A parallel situation exists in the trade with Red China” (September 1955); and “Ships Enroute to U.S. from Soviet or Satellite Ports” (October 1957). A letter to U.S. Ambassador Julian F. Harrington details “the possibility that the Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1960 would result in a general acceptance by the United States of a six-mile breadth of territorial sea” (April 1960). Other documents chart day-to-day aspects of the economy: a report on sugar production with tables on sugar production and consumption (June 1950); and an announcement by the Panamá Canal Company of a contract award for native lumber (August 1952).
Brazil: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1960-1963
This archive focuses on Brazil in the early 1960s. Sample documents include a report from Recife on the cultivation and export of pineapples, “especially in the states of Pernambuco and Paraíba,” as “an increasing source of foreign exchange for the Northeast.” A November 1962 memorandum details the issuance of 40 billion cruzeiros in new currency “to meet runs on commercial banks during the political crisis, gradually flowing back to the Bank of Brazil following the return of normal conditions.” The collection covers the period following the resignation from the presidency of Janio Quadros in 1961 and the succession of Vice President Joao Goulart, whose years in office were marked by high inflation, economic stagnation, and the increasing influence of radical political elements. The armed forces, alarmed by these developments, staged a coup on March 31, 1964, during the administration of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Trial access: Pittsburgh Courier
Until June 30, 2018, the Library has access to the newspaper Pittsburgh Courier in its various iterations: The Pittsburgh Courier (1911-1950), Courier (1950-1954), Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1966), and the New Pittsburgh Courier (1996-2002).
This important African-American press title was founded in 1910 by Robert Lee Vann. At first the paper focused on local interests, but later addressed the social concerns that arose due to the influx of African Americans to Pittsburgh during the Great Migration. Vann used the paper as a platform to encourage prominent African Americans to serve their community; to promote education; and to counter the “negative coverage in the mainstream press by emphasizing African American achievement.”
Source:
Muhammad, Baiyina W. “Black Press: Newspapers in Major Cities.” In Encyclopedia of African American Business, edited by Jessie Carney Smith, Millicent Lownes-Jackson, and Linda T. Wynn, 1:79–88. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Primary Sources: State Papers Online – Foreign
The Library has acquired the Foreign State Papers of early British Monarchs.
State Papers Online Part II: The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Foreign, Scotland, Borders, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
“Documents Tudor England’s relations with its neighbours, both near and distant including those it sought to control (Scotland, Ireland and Wales), those it fought wars or maintained peace with in Europe (the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France) and those it traded with (the Ottoman Empire, the Barbary coast and Russia.)”
State Papers Online Part IV: The Stuarts and the Commonwealth, James I – Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Foreign, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
“Part IV completes the Papers of the Stuart period and contains volumes of State Papers from, to and about all the countries of Europe. Many of these countries have lost their own collections from this period increasing the rarity and value of these British State Papers. All the great international themes of the 17th century play out in document after document making them an essential resource for not only British but European History: marriage alliances, revolutions, wars and treaties, trade and commerce and, crucially, religion.”
These can be found along with the State Papers Domestic for these time periods, at State Papers Online.
Primary Sources: Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library
The Library has recently acquired Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library (1475-1900), a full-text searchable digital library of early printed books in Arabic script. It includes works on law, the sciences, religion, history, geography, travel, mathematics, and many other subjects. There are some European translations of Arabic works included, as well as Arabic translations of European works.
The resource is divided into three subject modules, though all can be searched simultaneously.
Module 1: Religion and Law
The Qu’ran, traditions (Hadith), tafsir, theology, commentaries on religious texts, religious teaching and practice, biographies of religious figures; law, fiqh and statutes, fatwas and rulings
Module 2: Sciences, History, and Geography
Natural history, medicine, physiology, other science, classical sciences, philosophy, logic, politics, ethics, mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, mechanics, astrology, chemistry; history, early caliphs and conquests, modern history, genealogy, biographies; geography and travel, regional geography, and topography
Module 3: Periodicals, Literature, Grammar, Language, Catalogues and General Works
Periodicals, folktales, pre-Islamic literature (Antar, Bani Hilal, Imru’l qays), Islamic poetry and prose (al-Burdah), poetry and prose (maqamat), Kalilah wa-dimnah, Luqman, proverbs and sayings, Thousand and one nights, later literature, poetry and prose, general literature; language and lexicography, dictionaries, grammar, syntax, rhetoric, ‘ilm al-bayan, catalogues, manuscript catalogues, etc.
Searches can be done in Arabic (using a built-in keyboard tool), transliterated Arabic, or Latin script.
Primary Sources: Presidential Recordings Digital Edition
The Library has acquired Presidential Recordings Digital Edition, an online portal for annotated transcripts of telephone conversations of Presidents Johnson, Kennedy, and Nixon. Recordings and transcripts are presented together. The transcripts are searchable and browseable by administration, series, speaker, date, place, and duration.
Primary Sources: Manchurian Daily News Online
The Library has recently acquired the digital archive of the Manchurian Daily News and associated publications Manchuria Magazine, Manchuria Month, Contemporary Manchuria, and the Manchurian Information Bulletin. As described on the Brill website, this resource “offers scholars of Japan’s modern history an unparalleled inside view of Japan’s agenda in Manchuria and its plans for domination in Asia. Founded in 1908 in the wake of Japan’s victory in the war against Russia, the Manchuria Daily News set up in Dalian (Darien) at the headquarters of the South Manchuria Railway Company (Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha) (SMR).
“Lavishly funded from Tokyo, and with the full resources of the SMR Research Department behind them, the Manchuria Daily News and the associated titles offered here constitute a formidable record of Japanese policy on Manchuria and the Manchoukuo project. From 1908-1940 this compact, feisty daily and its associated titles responded to the exigencies of the day, taking requests from a variety of official and often competing propaganda bureaux. In the Manchuria Daily News and in these associated publications, the SMR presented a powerful case for the Japanese leadership of Asia, after 1932 using Manchoukuo as a showcase for Japan’s technological, cultural and political advancement.”
Primary Sources: Ogonek Digital Archive (DA-OGN) 1923-2017
The Library has acquired the Ogonek Digital Archive 1923-2017.
Ogonek is one of the oldest weekly magazines in Russia, having been in continuous publication since 1923. Throughout its illustrious history Ogonek has published original works by such Soviet cultural luminaries as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Isaac Babel, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the photographer Yuri Rost, and others. It first saw the rise of its stock under the editorial guidance of Mikhail Koltsov, a star Soviet reporter, who oversaw the growth of Ogonek from a readership of 25,000 in 1923 to nearly half a million within a mere two year period, turning it into one of the most influential and widely read Soviet publications of the period. Its popularity was left intact even after Koltsov’s arrest on the eve of the WWII in 1938. It is safe to say however, that the magazine would not become the cultural force it became, were it not for the editorial tenure of Anatoli Sofronov, the noted Soviet poet and playwright. Under Sofronov’s at times controversial and at times bromidic leadership Ogonek became an important outlet for some of the most well-known and respected Soviet writers, visual artists, photographers and reporters. Although under Sofronov Ogonek grew steadily, it came to experience the peak of its popularity at the hands of its new editor Vitaly Korotich, who assumed the editorship of the magazine after the passing of Sofronov in 1986 at the height of Perestroika. Korotich, inspired by the newfound political liberties turned the journal into a lively space for edgy political commentary, criticism, and satire. After undergoing financial and creative crisis in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw a steep decline in readership, Ogonek has now rediscovered its creative zest under a new leadership and management, once again becoming an important forum for cultural and political intellectual exchanges.