Finding Primary Sources: Primary Sources at Pilgrim Library

Over 78,000 tracks and 21,000 works from the Naxos Music Library. Access to the music files is restricted to the students, faculty and staff of OhioLINK member institutions, and off-campus access is available. Flash player is required.

American Periodicals Series Online contains page images of more than 1,100 historic American magazines, journals, and newspapers. These resources illuminate the development of American culture, politics, and society across some 150 years. Articles can be searched by author, source, and words in the complete text.
The collection is arranged in three series: 1741-1800, the period of transition from British colony to emerging nation; 1800-1850, pre-Civil War and the era of debate over slavery; and 1850-1900, Civil War and Reconstruction. Magazines of these periods cover the literature, science, religion, arts, and history of the time.

Greek and Latin Inscriptions (digital squeezes) is a collection of digitized squeezes (accurate paper impressions) of Greek and Latin inscriptions from Greece, Italy, and Macedonia. The squeezes were contributed by the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at The Ohio State University, whose purpose is to foster the study of inscriptions and manuscripts and promote research opportunities for those interested in these primary sources of information for the ancient and mediaeval world.

HarpWeek is the electronic version of Harper's Weekly from the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, 1857-1871. HarpWeek includes all the pages of Harper's Weekly as scanned images, together with a series of indexes. Harper's Weekly was a leading national weekly during the second half of the nineteenth-century, providing information and insights on political, military and social issues and events prior to and during the Civil War. HarpWeek includes news, editorials, stories, illustrations, book reviews, serialized novels, advertising and maps from the weekly. It also includes biographical information about period leaders.

Kent State Shootings Oral Histories is a collection of oral histories related to the May 4, 1970 shootings of Vietnam War protestors at Kent State University. The oral histories include many eyewitness accounts of the event and its aftermath, contributed by people who were students, faculty members, and City of Kent residents at the time, as well as an account by an Ohio National Guardsman. The oral histories preserve personal histories of and individual reactions to the shootings.
The oral histories are part of Kent State's May 4 Collection, created to assist students, faculty, staff, community members and other researchers in locating information sources related to the Kent State shootings and their aftermath.

Sanborn Digital Maps are large scale street plans produced by the Sanborn Fire Insurance company from 1867 to 1970. Sanborn Maps show the outline of each building including the location of windows and doors together with street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers.
These maps are heavily used in both public and academic libraries by a wide range of researchers including local historians to locate and identify buildings and neighborhoods, urban historians to study the growth of towns and cities, and environmentalists concerned about impact of new developments.

OhioLINK users can connect to Sanborn maps using the links on this page. Other Ohio citizens can connect to Sanborn Maps through their public libraries' Web sites, or through OPLIN.

Wright Brothers Digital Photographs is a collection of photographs documenting the invention of the airplane, the lives of the Wright Family, and the Wrights' flying exhibitions in Europe and the United States. The collection provides thorough coverage of the Wrights' early inventive period documenting their early gliders and flight testing in both North Carolina and Ohio. Much of it should show that Orville and Wilbur Wright were technically excellent photographers who painstakingly documented their process of invention. The content posted to date also provides a valuable record of their home life, camp life, and the flora and fauna of the Outer Banks 100 year ago.
These photos are from The Wright Brothers Collection housed in Special Collections and Archives at the Wright State University Libraries, one of the most complete collections of Wright material in the world.

Newspaper Source provides full text for 185 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, including Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Times (London), Toronto Star, etc. The database also contains selective full text for 392 regional (U.S.) newspapers. In addition, full-text television & radio news transcripts are provided from CBS News, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, NPR, etc.

African-American Poetry 1760-1900 includes the full text of almost 3000 poems written by African-American poets in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. African-American Poetry is a resource for literary scholars and for researchers in black studies, linguistics, women's studies, black literary heritage, and comparative studies. The poetry explores a multitude of topics, including abolition, children, civil rights, dreams, education, fugitive slave law, Indian raids, liberty, political issues, prejudice, and slavery. The variety of poem types is equally broad. The database includes allegories, broadsides, children's poems, elegiac poems, epics, hymns, odes, patriotic poems, and sonnets. The poets are among those included in the William French et al. bibliography, Afro-American Poetry and Drama, 1760-1975. The full-text of the poems is included and is fully searchable.

American Drama currently contains more than 700 plays from over 300 dramatists of American dramatic literature from 1714 to the present. When finished, American Drama will feature the complete texts of more than 2,000 plays written by American dramatists.

American Poetry 1600-1900 is a collection of 1,200 books and anthologies of early American poetry providing access to 40,000 poems of American writers from the 17th to the early 20th century. This database contains the works of all major American poets, including Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, and John Greenleaf Whittier. It also covers many less familiar names.
An eminent editorial advisory board selected the authors and editions for inclusion in American Poetry. It used as its principal bibliographic source, the Bibliography of American Literature, Yale University Press, 1955-1991, and supplemented this with additional poets to provide a more thorough and rounded collection. The complete text of each poem is included. Any accompanying text written by the original author and forming an integral part of the work, such as notes, dedications, and prefaces to individual poems, is also generally included.

Bibliography of American Literature is a comprehensive bibliographic guide, providing nearly 40,000 records of the literary works of approximately 300 American writers from the American Revolution to 1930. BAL lists every reprint and variant edition of an authors works, including obscure and fugitive appearances in anthologies, broadsides, and gift books. It also includes details on bindings and physical features of the editions.
BAL originally appeared in print in nine volumes, published for the Bibliographical Society of America by Yale University Press between 1955 and 1991. All nine volumes of BAL are fully searchable together.

Early American Fiction contains 440 works of 80 novelists and short-story writers, 1774-1850. This database comprises the full texts of the first editions of American novels and short stories written before 1850 by authors of significance during their lifetimes.

Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare includes the complete text of eleven major editions of Shakespeares works, from the First Folio (1623) to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6. It also includes twenty-four separate contemporary printings of individual plays, selected apocrypha and related works, and more than 100 adaptations, sequels, and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

Eighteenth Century Fiction contains the complete text of 96 works of English prose from the period 1700-1780, by writers from the British Isles. All of the most widely-studied texts are in the database, alongside others long neglected or unavailable. The complete text of each work is included. First editions have been used unless considered unreliable.
Some original images are included (title pages and illustrations), linked from the appropriate point in the text. Tristram Shandy has been scanned in its entirety, to capture all of its idiosyncrasies. The scanned version (of its first London edition) is linked to the keyed version.

English Poetry 600-1900 contains the full text of over 175,000 poems by over 1,400 poets from British Commonwealth and ex-colonial countries, between the years 600 and 1900. This database contains the full text of over 4400 poetry collections listed in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Many of these collections are rare books, unavailable in print form. The database includes the works of writers listed as poets, writers whose main entry appears under another genre but who are cross-referenced to poetry and a few additional writers of poetry not cross-referenced. Works in English of Welsh, Scottish, and Irish poets are included. The full-text and any relevant accompanying text written by the poet.

English Prose Drama is based on plays listed in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature that were written or intended for the stage and wholly or primarily in prose. EPD contains more than 1,800 plays by approximately 400 authors from the Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century. Early, and where appropriate, collected editions are generally selected. If a contemporary edition is considered unreliable, a later edition may be used. In certain cases, modern critical editions are included. The full text of each drama is included with any accompanying text written by the author and forming an integral part of the work. Selected images are directly accessible from the relevant points in the text. English Prose Drama complements English Verse Drama.

English Verse Drama contains the full text of more than 2,200 works of poetry intended for the stage by over 500 named authors and over 300 anonymous works, from the Shrewsbury Fragments of the late thirteenth century through the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods to the end of the nineteenth century. A verse drama is generally defined as a work acted on or intended for the stage which is either completely in verse or includes significant verse content. EVD complements and extends the English Poetry database. It adds six centuries of poetry intended for the stage.
The bibliographic basis is the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. The database includes the works of all writers of verse drama listed in NCBEL and principally active before 1900. Editions chosen are usually contemporary with their authors. Masques and short dramatic pieces written primarily in verse, selected translations, works written for children and numerous adaptations are included. The entire text of each verse drama is included, together with any accompanying text written by the original author.

20th Century African-American Poetry contains 12,000 poems by more than 100 African-American poets, including Audre Lorde, Langston Hughes, Rita Dove, and emerging poets. Biographical profiles accompany each poets work.

20th Century American Poetry contains 52,000 poems from collected works and individual volumes of poetry covering the works of most major twentieth-century American poets. The database includes the works of most major twentieth-century American poets, beginning with the traditionalists; continuing through the modernists, represented by such poets as Wallace Stevens; and moving on to the contemporary works of the 1990s.
The broad coverage of Twentieth-Century American Poetry includes collected works and individual volumes of poetry from all the major movements and schools, including the New School, the Chicago School, the Southern School, the Confessionals, the Beats, and the Black Mountain poets.

20th Century English Poetry contains over 44,000 poems by 288 poets, incorporating the Modern Poetry Collection and The Faber Poetry Library. The complete text of each poem is included, and any integral images are also scanned. Introductions and prefaces to the volumes are included, as are all notes and any prose sections.
For early English poetry, see English Poetry 600-1900.

William Butler Yeats Collection is a complete electronic edition of William Butler Yeats work, bringing together 22 printed volumes and including critical and fictional prose, poetry, plays, and autobiographical works.