Divinity Research Tutorial

4. Other resources: Manuscripts & Archives

Manuscripts and archives are primary sources: the personal papers of an individual or records of an organization. They may be held in original format, or in microtext format. Manuscript and archival records groups usually have finding aids that describe the collection in detail.

At Yale, archival and manuscript collections have collection level records in Orbis. You can look for manuscript material in Orbis by using a keyword search that includes the term "u.fmt.", e.g. "prayer and school? and u.fmt."

There are various tools that can help you track down manuscript and archival collections related to your topic. The finding aids for anuscript and archival material at Yale can be searched through The Yale University Library Finding Aid Database. (Mostly Divinity Library and Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library holdings at this point.)

You may need to identify archival collections beyond Yale when doing primary source research.
There are two online databases that provide collection level descriptions and/or finding aids for manuscript and archival materials:

ArchivesUSA Online
ArchiveGrid

An increasing number of archival repositories provide electronic versions of the finding aids for their manuscript and archival collections. These electronic finding aids are sometimes only accessible through the repositories' websites. The best online guide to repository websites is the University of Idaho guide: Repositories of Primary Sources. Also useful is the NUCMC (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections) page at the Library of Congress, which includes information about NUCMC, links to archives related web sites, and a connection to the RLIN online Archives and Manuscripts catalog.

Online guides for using ArchivesUSA and the ArchiveGrid are available.

There are also many print guides to manuscript and archival collections that focus on special subject areas or document the holdings of a particular repository. Consult the Subject Guide for your area of interest to identify relevant guides to manuscript and archival material, or search Orbis.

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