There is an enormous range of primary source material available in various formats (print, microfilm, digitised), and whilst an increasing amount is available open access, other content has to be subscribed to or purchased. Libraries, archives, museums, other organisations, and individuals themselves can hold, acquire, create or provide access to primary sources on all kinds of topics relevant to Decolonisation.
Types of primary sources can be extremely diverse and include material such as: diaries, manuscripts, archives, interviews & recordings, surveys & polls, news reports, maps, treaties, government documents, legal cases, photos, film, statistics, data, patents, original works of art, literature & music, autobiographies, artefacts
The Library has purchased digitised collections of primary source, some of which are relevant to Decolonisation and are listed below.
See also the History subject guide, which has extensive lists and includes open access resources.
Organisations like JSTOR are trying to increase the diversity of digitised primary source material available, for example through their Reveal Digital program (please note that collections only become open access once funding targets have been met).
Google Arts & Culture also has a large number of themes that are connected to various aspects of Decolonisation, and can be an interesting place to explore ideas & access digitised material
If you come across other digitised resources that are of interest to your teaching or research that we don't have access to, please contact the library. Even if we are not in a position to purchase or subscribe, we may be able to arrange a free trial of the resource you are interested in.
Before digitisation, the Library acquired large amounts of primary source material on microfilm and microfiche, most of it relating to the humanities & social sciences, it includes some collections of potential interest in Decolonisation contexts.
You can search the Library catalogue by keyword (limit your search to Microforms) to see what we have, or browse a list of the main collections here:
