Primary Sources
Six Centuries of Essential Documents
Engage, inspire and inform researchers at every level with unmatched historical collections
Primary sources are vital for advanced scholarship in many disciplines. They are also increasingly used in undergraduate classes to develop critical thinking and interdisciplinary understanding. Over decades, ProQuest has developed unique relationships with museums, specialty archives and other content providers around the world to offer unparalleled primary source collections – some available digitally only from ProQuest – that engage, inspire and inform researchers at every level.
Pages of world class collections
Historical periodical content
Global, national and regional newspapers that deliver in-the-moment insights
Historically chronicled from multiple perspectives
Solutions for libraries
ProQuest Digital Collections
ProQuest Digital Collections offers discipline-aligned multiformat content and vast primary sources spanning six centuries of essential content to serve researchers and students of all levels. The subscription includes many rare and exclusive resources, encompassing over 160 million primary source items. With broad, affordable access of scholarly content, the resource supports Black Studies, Anthropology, Entertainment & Popular Culture, Global Studies & International Relations, History, Literature, Performing Arts, Visual Arts & Design, and Women's Studies.
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News & Newspapers
ProQuest News and Newspapers enhance all forms of research with access to premier titles with coverage spanning centuries. As a crucial resource for researchers across subjects, news often serves as the best or only source of information on a topic.
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Government
ProQuest supports the Government market with empowering researcher success with comprehensive, diverse collections.
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Faculty demand primary sources for teaching and learning
Faculty need materials to engage students and help them explore issues and events from a variety of perspectives. Primary sources enable novice researchers to form their own, informed conclusions and support the development of critical thinking and digital literacy skills. ProQuest collections map to curriculum so they can be easily integrated into course plans and syllabi.
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Access content frequently used in academic research
Analysis of full-text dissertations and scholarly journals published on the ProQuest platform from 2001-2018 found over 260,000 works that cited our historical primary source collections, including periodicals and specialty collections.
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Inspire engaging and successful teaching and learning
First person accounts from multiple sources – including government records, personal correspondence, organizational documents, diaries, photos and more - enable users to explore the complexity of issues and provide evidence for their conclusions. The result: better outcomes on assignments and projects.
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Pursue new avenues of discovery
Rare and unique documents – many available only from ProQuest – provide opportunities to uncover little known or previously overlooked perspectives of trending topics in research and learning -- Black history, gender studies, LGBTQ+ culture, international conflicts and much more – that engage and inspire users.
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