Top of page

Home page of the Africana Post Card collection

Global Resources from the Library of Congress

Posted by: Cheryl Lederle

Share this post:

While the Library of Congress might be best known for collections related to American history, many of its collections reflect global events, locations, and individuals. Here are a few starting paths for exploring the collections.

Sample this list of collections related to world history, many in languages other than English. In fact, the Library collects materials in 470 languages! A few highlights to pique your curiosity:

  • The World Digital Library: “some of the world’s most important cultural objects…[and narrative descriptions] to contextualize the item and its cultural and historical importance;”
  • Africana Historic Postcard Collection: “more than 7000 historical photographic postcards documenting an important visual record of Africa and its people during the historically intensive years of European colonialism, from 1895 to 1960;”
  • The PALABRA archive: “audio recordings of prominent writers from Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, the Caribbean, and other regions with Luso-Hispanic heritage populations reading from their works.”

Chronicling America, a partnership program providing access to select digitized newspapers, includes newspapers in many languages, searchable via a dropdown menu.

Search by the language of the newspaper

For even more possibilities, take advantage of subject matter expertise in blogs and research guides. Here are a few places to start:

For your reference and ease of sharing, download this handout of highlights of Library of Congress Global Resources: 2023. Please leave a comment to let our readers know what global resources you discover in the Library’s collections!

Do you enjoy these posts? Subscribe! You’ll receive free teaching ideas and primary sources from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Add a Comment

This blog is governed by the general rules of respectful civil discourse. You are fully responsible for everything that you post. The content of all comments is released into the public domain unless clearly stated otherwise. The Library of Congress does not control the content posted. Nevertheless, the Library of Congress may monitor any user-generated content as it chooses and reserves the right to remove content for any reason whatever, without consent. Gratuitous links to sites are viewed as spam and may result in removed comments. We further reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to remove a user's privilege to post content on the Library site. Read our Comment and Posting Policy.


Required fields are indicated with an * asterisk.