A recent NDIIPP intern, Ingrid Jernudd, did some research into current web resources that provide digital access to a broad array of primary source materials at the state level. She prepared a list of sites that billed themselves as general-interest portals to historical resources. Although the list is likely incomplete, I was surprised she found so many.
It is worth bearing in mind also that the list, with one exception, does not include local or municipal websites (the one exception is the Denver Public Library; its Western History and Genealogy site is included because it has resources that extend beyond Denver proper).
Most of the materials available through these websites are digitized versions of analog items. Many of the sites could, however, accommodate born digital content, as well as serve as useful models for the ongoing development of access to cultural heritage resources.
Ingrid’s findings are presented in the two tables below. Table 1 lists 66 websites that relate to individual states. Table 2 lists five sites that cover multiple states. If you know of resources that are not listed here, please let us know via a comment.
Table 1, State Digital Portals
| State | Resource | Website |
| AL | Alabama Dept. of Archives and History Digital Collections | http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/ |
| Alabama Virtual Library | http://www.avl.lib.al.us/ | |
| AK | Alaska’s Digital Archives | http://vilda.alaska.edu/ |
| AR | Arkansas History Commission | http://www.ark-ives.com/ |
| Arkansas State Library Digital Collections | http://cdm16039.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ | |
| AZ | Arizona Memory Project | http://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/ |
| Arizona Cultural Inventory Project | http://cip.azlibrary.gov/ | |
| CA | Calisphere | http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/ |
| California State Library Online Resources | http://www.library.ca.gov/services/online-resources.html | |
| CO | Denver Public Library, Western History and Genealogy | http://digital.denverlibrary.org/ |
| CT | Connecticut Digital Collections | http://www.ctstatelibrary.org/dld/pages/connecticut-digital-colle |
| DE | Delaware Public Archives | http://archives.delaware.gov/ |
| FL | Florida Memory | http://www.floridamemory.com/ |
| GA | Digital Library of Georgia | http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/ |
| Georgia’s Virtual Vault | http://cdm.georgiaarchives.org:2011/cdm/ | |
| HA | Hawaii State Archives Digital Collections | http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gsdl/cgi-bin/library |
| IA | Iowa State Historical Society Digital Archives | http://www.iowahistory.org/libraries/index.html |
| Iowa Heritage Digital Collections | http://www.iowaheritage.org/ | |
| ID | Idaho State Historical Society Digital Collections | http://idahohistory.cdmhost.com/ |
| IL | Illinois Digital Archives | http://www.idaillinois.org/ |
| Explorie Illinois: Illinois Digital Archives | http://www.finditillinois.org/ida/ | |
| IN | Indiana Memory | http://www.in.gov/memories/index.html |
| KS | Kansas Historical Society State Archives | http://www.kshs.org/p/state-archives-library/11933 |
| KY | Kentucky Digital Library | http://kdl.kyvl.org/ |
| LA | LOUISiana Digital Library | http://louisdl.louislibraries.org/ |
| LDMA (Louisiana Digital Media Archive) | http://ldma.lpb.org/about-ldma | |
| MA | Digital Commonwealth: Massachusetts Collections Online | http://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/ |
| Massachusetts Boards of Library Commissioners Digital Collections | http://mblc.state.ma.us/books/digital/ | |
| MD | Maryland Historical Society Online Collections | http://www.mdhs.org/museum/collections-online |
| Archives of Maryland Online | http://ow.ly/p8kO4 | |
| ME | Maine Memory Network | http://www.mainememory.net/ |
| MI | Seeking Michigan | http://seekingmichigan.org/ |
| MN | Minnesota Digital Library | http://www.mndigital.org/ |
| MO | Missouri Digital Heritage | http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ |
| MS | Mississippi Department of Archives and History: Digital Archives | http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/ |
| MT | Montana Memory Project | http://mtmemory.org/ |
| NC | North Carolina Digital Collections | http://digital.ncdcr.gov/ |
| North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online | http://www.ncecho.org/ | |
| North Carolina’s Digital Collections | http://digitalnc.org/collections | |
| ND | State Historical Society of North Dakota Digital Resources | http://www.history.nd.gov/archives/digitalresources.html |
| NE | Virtual Exhibits of the Nebraska State Historical Society | http://nebraskahistory.org/exhibits/index.shtml |
| NJ | New Jersey Digital Highway | http://www.njdigitalhighway.org/ |
| NM | New Mexico State Library Digital Archive | http://ow.ly/p8hrp |
| NV | Nevada Statewide Digital Initiative | http://nsla.nevadaculture.org/ |
| NY | New York Heritage Digital Collections | http://www.newyorkheritage.org/ |
| New York Department of Records Photo Gallery | http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/gallery/home.shtml | |
| New York Public Library Digital Gallery | http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/ | |
| OH | Ohio Memory | http://www.ohiomemory.org/ |
| OK | Oklahoma Digital Prairie | http://digitalprairie.ok.gov/ |
| OR | Oregon Digital Library Project | http://odl.library.oregonstate.edu/record/search |
| PA | Digital Collections at the State Library of Pennsylvania | http://ow.ly/p8hv3 |
| Historical Society of Pennsylvania Digital Library | http://digitallibrary.hsp.org/ | |
| RI | State of Rhode Island Virtual Archives | http://sos.ri.gov/virtualarchives/ |
| SC | South Carolina Digital Library | http://www.scmemory.org/ |
| SD | South Dakota State Historical Society Digital Archives | http://sddigitalarchives.contentdm.oclc.org/ |
| Digital Library of South Dakota | http://dlsd.sdln.net/index.php | |
| TN | Tennessee State Library and Archives: Digital Collections | http://www.tennessee.gov/tsla/resources/index.htm |
| Volunteer Voices | http://www.volunteervoices.org/ | |
| TX | Northeast Texas Digital Collections | http://dmc.tamu-commerce.edu/ |
| UT | Digital Utah | http://pioneer.utah.gov/digital/utah.html |
| VA | Virginia Memory | http://www.virginiamemory.com/collections/ |
| VT | Vermont Folklife Center | http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org/digital-archive/collections/ |
| WI | State of Wisconsin Collection | http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI |
| WV | West Virginia Division of Culture and History Online Exhibits | http://www.wvculture.org/museum/exhibitsonline.html |
| WY | Wyoming Memory | http://www.wyomingmemory.org/ |
Table 2, Multi-State Digital Portals
| States | Resource | Website |
| CO, NM, WY | Rocky Mountain Online Archive | http://rmoa.unm.edu/ |
| IL, IN | Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Gallery | http://www.umvphotoarchive.org/ |
| MN, ND | Digital Horizons: A Plains Media Resource | http://digitalhorizonsonline.org/ |
| UT, NV, ID, AZ, HI | Mountain West Digital Library | http://mwdl.org/ |
| Various | Digital Public Library of America | http://dp.la |
Update: Corrected links to the Vermont Folklife Center and the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Gallery.
September 23, 2013 at 3:50 pm
Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage (MDCH.org) is supported by Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore City’s public library) and the State Library of Maryland.
September 23, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Linda, thanks for this addition.
September 23, 2013 at 3:59 pm
The second item listed for Virginia is actually a Vermont resource.
September 23, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Susan, thanks for the correction, which has been made.
September 23, 2013 at 4:16 pm
The Portal to Texas History seems like it would fit the criteria for this list. http://texashistory.unt.edu/ I’m in Tennessee but am familiar with this Texas resource as I know some of the folks who work on the historical newspaper project, which forms part of this Portal.
September 23, 2013 at 4:42 pm
Louisa, thanks for the addition.
September 23, 2013 at 4:39 pm
There’s quite a bit online,digitized and some born digital, at the MN Historical Society: http://www.mnhs.org. Photos, birth records, Civil War collections, Gov. Ventura’s speeches, …
The newspaper portal has content which isn’t part of the NDNP, I believe:
http://newspapers.mnhs.org/web/mhsnews/web/imu.php?request=accesstool
September 23, 2013 at 4:43 pm
Bob, right you are! Thanks for the addition.
September 23, 2013 at 4:49 pm
Washington Rural Heritage is a statewide collaborative digitization initiative for accessing cultural heritage materials across Washington’s smaller rural and tribal communities, coordinated by the Washington State Library with funding through the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA/IMLS):
http://www.washingtonruralheritage.org/
September 23, 2013 at 4:54 pm
Ross, Looks like a great resource. Thanks for adding it to the list.
September 23, 2013 at 4:57 pm
Two more statewide Florida collections to consider are:
Florida Heritage Collection at http://palmm.fcla.edu/fhp/ : The Florida Heritage Collection is an ongoing cooperative project of the State University System (SUS) of Florida to digitize and provide online access to materials broadly representing Florida’s history, culture, arts, literature, sciences and social sciences.
Florida on Florida at http://fof.fcla.edu/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx : Florida On Florida is a catalog of digital materials related to Florida. It includes all sorts of items including maps,photographs, postcards, books, and manuscripts. The materials in Florida On Florida come from digital collections held by libraries, archives, museums and historical societies throughout Florida.
September 23, 2013 at 5:10 pm
Lee, thanks for the additional sites. It’s great to hear about so many other resources!
September 23, 2013 at 5:18 pm
http://www.newmexicohistory.org
from the Office of the State Historian in New Mexico has a vast treasure of primary resources as part of the state’s Digital History Project. ALSO http://www.econtent.unm.edu
New Mexico Digital collections- a centeral search portal for digital collections about New Mexico. A serrvice of University of New Mexico libraries with links to archives, museums, libraries, and cultural sites statewide.
September 23, 2013 at 5:20 pm
please correct spelling to read central search portal……I was typing too fast! ( not centeral) thanks
September 23, 2013 at 5:36 pm
Really great compilation. One small correction; the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital site relates to Iowa & Illinois, not Mississippi.
September 23, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Julia, thanks for pointing that out. The list has been updated.
Bill
September 24, 2013 at 2:19 am
I imagine the Washington State Digital Archives (www.digitalarchives.wa.gov) don’t meet your criteria in some way that’s not obvious to me and wasn’t just overlooked. The “About Us” tab says “The Washington State Digital Archives is the nation’s first archives dedicated specifically to the preservation of electronic records from both State and Local agencies that have permanent legal, fiscal or historical value.”
September 24, 2013 at 6:16 am
Where can we find the link to the ongoing updated information on these wonderful resources?
Thank you.
September 24, 2013 at 10:12 am
Joyce, that’s a great idea. Given the wonderful number of suggestions that are coming in, we will update the list and repost it.
September 24, 2013 at 8:56 am
Recollection Wisconsin http://recollectionwisconsin.org (formerly known as Wisconsin Heritage Online) is a portal that aggregates metadata from the State of Wisconsin Collection listed above as well as digitized materials from dozens of libraries, archives, museums and historical societies around the state.
September 24, 2013 at 9:43 am
Alabama Mosaic
http://www.alabamamosaic.org/
September 24, 2013 at 10:00 am
I believe that Kansas Memory http://www.kansasmemory.org/ also fits the criteria for this list. Thanks for the compilation.
September 24, 2013 at 10:00 am
Documenting the American South (http://docsouth.unc.edu)
“Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.”
September 24, 2013 at 10:10 am
Mass Memories project hosted by UMASS Boston:
http://openarchives.umb.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15774coll6
September 24, 2013 at 10:24 am
Louisa Trott is so right. The Portal to Texas History is a great candidate for this list. It has over 200,000 digital reproductions of historical items belonging to more then 250 participating institutions that include universities and colleges, archives, public libraries, museums, and historical organizations located throughout the state.
September 24, 2013 at 11:55 am
Connecticut State Library Digital Collections http://cslib.cdmhost.com/index.php (includes born digital state publications, library and archival collections) and http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctarchives (includes WPA Art collection, library, archive and museum collections) and Connecticut History Online http://www.cthistoryonline.org/ (collections of multiple participating institutions)
September 24, 2013 at 12:09 pm
I didn’t see the New England Historic Genealogical Society on the list.
http://library.nehgs.org/
September 24, 2013 at 12:51 pm
For Washington/Oregon/Idaho/Montana/Alaska (and very soon Utah): Northwest Digital Archives, nwda.orbiscascade.org
September 24, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Will the list be revised to include all the changes that were commented on? It will be a great resource. Thank you.
September 24, 2013 at 2:29 pm
Additions for Pennsylvania?
This is a portal to original documents at the state level
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/state_archives/2887/digital_copies_of_documents/383882
Penn State digital archives
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/civilwar.html
September 25, 2013 at 10:10 am
LC’s Digital Reference Team created a guide on this topic many moons ago, which makes me think how great it would be to get these two resources together
//www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/states/index.html
September 25, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Washington State Digital Archives – one of the best
http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/
September 25, 2013 at 2:20 pm
We have a nice County Virtual Courthouse at http://www.alachuaclerk.org/archive. We have been online for nearly 15 years. We add more every year. Alachua County Ancient Records…
September 25, 2013 at 3:33 pm
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Resources for Libraries and Lifelong Learning manages Found in Wisconsin, an index of digital collections hosted by WI libraries, museums, historical & genealogical societies, schools, and various cultural institutions.
http://fiw.dpi.wi.gov
While the site simply points to collections and does not host the content, it provides access to a wide array of historical information.
September 26, 2013 at 6:26 pm
The University of North Texas’ The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu/, should be a nice addition to this list.
Thank you,
September 27, 2013 at 10:48 am
The Library of Congress Teachers Page features a selection of “LIbrary of Congress Primary Sources by State”: //www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/states/. I have also shared your excellent list with teachers through the Teaching with Primary Sources Teachers Network. Thank you! It seems that the list prepared by your NDIIPP intern may grow significantly due to your willingness to crowdsource. Thanks for being open to suggestions.
September 27, 2013 at 10:51 pm
The Online Archive of California – free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/
September 29, 2013 at 12:30 pm
The Wisconsin Team connected with Community Instruction’s Resources intended for Your local library in addition to Lifelong Learning handles Found in Wisconsin, an catalog connected with electronic libraries organised by means of ‘ your local library, museums, famous & genealogical organizations, educational facilities, in addition to a variety of national companies.
Tree Removal Sydney
September 29, 2013 at 1:27 pm
While I do not have a site to recommend, I just want to thank your intern and this wonderful group for their input in creating such a complete and useful resource.
September 30, 2013 at 8:29 am
Kentucky just completed a digital portal for oral history collections in the state. This was a statewide effort and is specific for connecting to oral history content.
http://passtheword.ky.gov/
September 30, 2013 at 9:18 am
Digitial Library of Appalachia – http://dla.acaweb.org/
October 12, 2013 at 1:09 am
These pages on the website of the Wisconsin Historical Society serve as portals to resources, documents and images for the state:
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wihistory.asp
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/research.asp
Also useful may be:
http://portalwisconsin.org/interest_area.cfm?art=11
http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader/ (may not be updated)
October 18, 2013 at 9:04 am
http://mmm.lib.msu.edu/ (Note: mmm not www)
The Making of Modern Michigan is a collaborative project involving 52 Michigan libraries. It includes local history materials from communities around the state. Michigan’s unique heritage is represented through over 4,500 different subjects of photographs, family papers, oral histories, genealogical materials, and much more.
The Making of Modern Michigan aims at empowering libraries, throughout the state, to contribute to a digital collection about the state’s history
October 19, 2013 at 9:31 am
I didn’t see the Handbook of Texas on the list…
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
October 22, 2013 at 8:27 pm
Crowd-sourcing at its best! Thank you to all who contributed.
October 28, 2013 at 12:08 pm
The Rhode Island State Archives online catalog also contains digital content, with more being added week by week.
http://sos.ri.gov/archon/
October 31, 2013 at 9:32 am
The Delaware Heritage Collection is supported by the Delaware Division of Libraries http://lib.de.us/delaware-heritage-collection/
November 1, 2013 at 1:08 pm
The Virginia Heritage should be included. It brings together over 30 different organizations’ finding aids from across the state of Virginia. We have over 10,000 finding aids available: vaheritage.org
November 13, 2013 at 2:44 pm
The Historic Oregon Newspapers website, http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/ , allows keyword searching and browsing of Oregon newspapers published before 1923 from across the state.
November 26, 2013 at 1:22 pm
I’m working on a project to digitize and publish online the materials held by hundreds of organizations of all types in our city. The project involves the city public library, state library, state historical society and two university libraries. We’re looking for successful models for organizing and funding an ongoing community digitization program. We’re also looking for best practices (if there are any) in using collection owners — laypersons, not archivists or librarians — to analyze and organize collections in preparation for digitization. Where do you suggest we look for either of the above?
Thanks for your help.
November 26, 2013 at 3:55 pm
I would ask that the Rhode Island State Archives’ online catalog be added, as it too provides digital content.
http://sos.ri.gov/archon/
Thank you.
July 1, 2021 at 2:56 pm
the seekingmichigan link about will take you to michiganology the replacement website (rated F+ by this researcher)