German

Digital collections to search for primary sources.

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Primary Sources

There are several digital collections of primary sources available online. Others can be accessed through Western Libraries’ databases, some of which are listed below. For more on defining and locating primary sources, see Primary Source Literacy. You can also contact a librarian for research assistance.

Digital Collections

Digitale Sammlungen
Very large, international list of digital collections containing German books.
Enlightenment Journals
A large number of 18th and 19th century journals, ranging from Berlinische Monatsschrift to Thalia. Search and browse full text.
Frühe Neuzeit Digital
Collection of links to historical source documents of the early modern period.
German Studies Collaboratory
Virtual hub of open education resources for those interested in German language, art, culture, and history. Includes links to digital resources in a variety of formats.
IDZ - Index of German Journals 1750-1815
Indexes contain 100.000 records of articles published from 1750 to 1815 in 195 periodicals. No full text (although some of the journals will be available from the Enlightenment journals project).
Jahresberichte für deutsche Geschichte
The project indexes German and foreign-language academic publications through 2015. No longer updated (2016).
Kulturerbe digital
A guide to hundreds of German digital projects and the sponsoring institutions.
Magazine Stacks
Tables of contents of historical journals.
MICHAEL: Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe
A guide to digital collections from European museums, archives, and libraries.
Open Access Resources in German Studies (OARGS): Directories
Topical, discipline-specific, pedagogical or geographical finding aids for Open Access materials relevant for German Studies.
ZDB: Zeitschriftendatenbank
A union catalog of German periodicals held at German libraries (1500-). About 1.1 million titles with detailed holdings information. Now with links to free full-text journals.

Databases

Eighteenth Century Collections Online
A full-text, full-image archive of materials published in Britain and Europe between 1701 to 1800. Languages include English, Dutch, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Dutch, Welsh, and others.
Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, 1685-1815
Includes periodicals from the Hope Collection at the Bodleian Library; newspapers and periodicals (1699-1812) from the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center; newspapers and periodicals from the British Newspaper Library and Cambridge University Library; and newspapers and periodicals (1708-1820) from Chetham's Library and Manchester and Brotherton Library.
Electronic Enlightenment
Coverage includes letters and document sources, such as manuscripts, early printed editions, and scholarly annotations, as well as links to biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and other online resources.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)
Primary source collections of the nineteenth century, comprised of a variety of material types: monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more.