Tag: primary sources
Primary Sources: The Guatemala Collection: Government and Church Documents for Sacatepéquez
The Library has acquired the The Guatemala Collection: Government and Church Documents for Sacatepéquez (1587-1991).
Populated predominantly by indígenas (indigenous peoples) who speak Kaqchikel-Maya, Sacatepéquez Department offers an excellent window into Latin American and Native American history. Crucial to Guatemala’s colonial and national development, indígenas were largely discounted and denigrated. Despite such discrimination and disadvantages, many found ways to survive and thrive. Often converging at the nexus of modernization and tradition, the documents in this collection convey the complicated hybrid history of a nation striving to present itself as progressive and civilized in an Atlantic world that seldom associated those qualities with indigeneity. The Guatemala Collection houses a rich array of government, church, and civil documents that bear testimony to an indigenous population’s struggle and success with the changing social, economic, political, and religious dynamics of colonial and independent rule.
The Guatemala Collection comprises ten series. Across these ten series, the documents of the collection are organized into fifty-seven distinct classifications that include such themes as economy, agriculture, forced labor, complaints, crime, annual reports, natural disasters, municipal affairs, education, elections, military, public works, religion, public health, lands and estates, development, resignations and solicitations, regulations, festivities, and maps.
Language: Spanish
Primary Sources: Los Primeros Libros de las Americas
As the site explains, Los Primeros Libros de las Americas is “a digital collection of the first books printed in the Americas before 1601. These monographs are very important because they represent the first printing in the New World and provide primary sources for scholarly studies in a variety of academic fields. Of the 220 editions believed to have been produced in Mexico and 20 in Peru, approximately 155 are represented in institutions around the world.”
Resource: New Research Guide for France’s May ’68
Les événements de mai 68 (the events of May ’68) or Mai 68 (May ’68) refer to the socio-political and cultural contestation that took place in France between May and June, 1968. Student protests at universities in Nantes, Brest and Nanterre were eventually joined by a general strike involving some 10 million workers, nearly 20 percent of the population. While the movement, or events, which lasted nearly 6 weeks failed to transform the state, it did have an indelible impact on French society, forever changing the social space and opening up a terrain for new social movements.
As May ’68 approaches its fiftieth anniversary, the Mai 68: Library Research Guide created by Claude Potts, Librarian for Romance Language Collections, serves as a starting point for interdisciplinary research of all levels into this specific historical moment and also commemorates the ways the movement opened up a broader discourse into social emancipation, including feminism, anti-racism, ecology, and gay rights. As home to the Free Speech Movement and the first large-scale protest against the Vietnam War in 1964, UC Berkeley has a special connection with May ’68, and the depth of our library collection on the topic is a testament to that transatlantic link.
(Photo by Bruno Barbey of students and workers in Charlety stadium in Paris. May 27th, 1968 retrieved from ARTstor.)
New Research Guide for France’s May ’68
Poster from Atelier populaire, 1968 retrieved from Gallica; Photo by Bruno Barbey of students and workers in Charlety stadium in Paris. May 27th, 1968 retrieved from ARTstor.
Les événements de mai 68 (the events of May ’68) or Mai 68 (May ’68) refer to the socio-political and cultural contestation that took place in France between May and June, 1968. Student protests at universities in Nantes, Brest and Nanterre were eventually joined by a general strike involving some 10 million workers, nearly 20 percent of the population. While the movement, or events, which lasted nearly 6 weeks failed to transform the state, it did have an indelible impact on French society, forever changing the social space and opening up a terrain for new social movements.
As May ’68 approaches its fiftieth anniversary, the Mai 68: Library Research Guide serves as a starting point for interdisciplinary research of all levels into this specific historical moment and also commemorates the ways the movement opened up a broader discourse into social emancipation, including feminism, anti-racism, ecology, and gay rights. As home to the Free Speech Movement and the first large-scale protest against the Vietnam War in 1964, UC Berkeley has a special connection with May ’68, and the depth of our library collection on the topic is a testament to that transatlantic link.
Primary Sources: British Labour Party papers, 1906-1969
The Library has acquired British Labour Party papers, 1906-1969, a module on the British Online Archives platform.
These papers cover the foundation of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1906, then “follow the Party through Ramsay MacDonald’s Governments, two world wars, the first Harold Wilson Government and the early part of his second Government. The events in these records are a reflection of current events as much as of the Party itself. From the suffrage campaign for the electoral enfranchisement of women, to nuclear tests over the Pacific Ocean, through the Beveridge Report, the Trade Union Bill and the development of the United Nations. Early policies like the minimum wage would not pass for decades and Party discipline would be a challenge for every Party Leader. Those challenges existed alongside the removal of the right for employers to sue trade unions and the creation of social services. These papers have been arranged by year and divided into thematic groups for ease of analysis.”
Trial: John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera
Until April 1, the Library has trial access to the John Johnson Collection, An Archive of Printed Ephemera. This resource provides high-quality images of thousands of items selected from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera housed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. The collection offers “unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Categories include Nineteenth-Century Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions, and Advertising.”
Primary sources: Records of Syria, 1918-1973
The Library has acquired an electronic version of the 15 volume set Records of Syria, 1918-1973. This work is a selection, by Cambridge Archive Editions, of British diplomatic despatches and includes 12,000 pages of original research carried out at the National Archives in London. The resource is browsable and searchable and up to 50 pages at a time can be downloaded as a PDF document.
Some of the topics addressed in the documents include:
- Issues arising from the proposed Sykes–Picot Agreement, 1916
- The seizure of Damascus from the Turks in 1918
- Arab Government and King Feisal
- French occupation, 1920
- The French Mandate and the struggle for self-government
- Druze rebellion 1925/26
- Proposed Franco-Syrian Treaty, 1936, and the failure of the French to ratify it
- The Vichy administration overthrown, 1941
- The Free French and General de Gaulle
- The French imprison the Syrian Government, 1943
- Bombardment of Damascus and the final break with the French
- Independence in 1946 and the ensuing political instability
- Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din Bitar and the creation of the Ba’th party
- Antun Sa’ada, executed in 1949, and the Parti Populaire Syrien
- Reactions to the war with Israel, 1948, including the coup bringing Colonel Husni Zaim to power
- The rise of the Ba’th Party and union with Egypt in 1958
- Communism and relations with Russia
- The Arab–Israeli War, 1967
- The struggle for power between the Ba’th and the progressives 1968–1971
- The final coup d’état which brought Hafiz al-Asad to power
Trial: Struggles for Freedom – Southern Africa
Until February 18, the Library has a trial of Struggle for Freedom: Southern Africa, a JSTOR collection of materials from archives and libraries throughout the world documenting colonial rule, dispersion of exiles, international intervention, and the worldwide networks that supported successive generations of resistance within the region.
According to their site, the resource “consists of 76 different collections of more than 20,000 objects and 190,000 pages of documents and images, including periodicals, nationalist publications, records of colonial government commissions, local newspaper reports, personal papers, correspondence, UN documents, out-of-print and other particularly relevant books, pamphlets, speeches, and interviews with those who participated in the struggles.”
Trial: North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
Until 2/15/2018 the Library has a trial set up for North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
This text-based collection includes over 100,000 pages of material, including Ellis Island oral histories, scrapbooks, pamphlets, previously unpublished diaries, and more, related to the immigrant experience in America.
Primary Sources: Moscow News Digital Archive
The Library has recently acquired access to Moscow News (pub. 1930-2014), which, as described on the database platform, “was the oldest English-language newspaper in Russia and, arguably, the newspaper with the longest democratic history. From a mouthpiece of the Communist party to an influential advocate for social and political change, the pages of Moscow News reflect the shifting ideological, political, social and economic currents that have swept through the Soviet Union and Russia in the last century.
“The Moscow News Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues (1930-2014, approx. 60,000 pages), including issues of the newspaper’s short-lived sister publication Moscow Daily News (1932-1938).
“The Moscow News Digital Archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other East View digital resources.”