Online Special Collections Materials

From the previous page, you might have noticed something in both the finding aid and the catalog record: we can actually view the “Armed Revolutionary Organizations in Mexico documents, 1965-1998 (MSS 523)” collection online, as it has been digitized.

You might be asking, if the collection is online, do I actually need to know how to use a finding aid? Absolutely! First, research can sometimes require needing to understand the materiality of an object, such as the type and quality of paper used or how a book is bound. However, one of the most important reasons is that the majority of special collections are not available online. While it may sound simple to digitize special collections, this is a very costly and labor-intensive endeavor! While there is a wealth of special collections materials available online, you should remember that some materials are only available in special collections.

While many special collections are available through individual library websites, there are some websites that allow users to search through materials across multiple institutions. Two of these websites based in California are Calisphere and the Online Archive of California (OAC):

• The Online Archive of California (OAC) “provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 300 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses.”
• Calisphere “provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over two million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more. The collections in Calisphere have been digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.”

Both OAC and Calisphere allow you to search through hundreds of institutions’ archives and special collections through keyword searches, or you can browse by collections.