In 2016, ProQuest is digitizing nearly 30 million pages of new, unique and diverse primary source content, making it accessible online in ProQuest’s acclaimed Historical Collections Program. In print, the new content would form a tower 10,000 feet tall, more than six times the height of the Empire State Building. Via ProQuest’s technology and indexing expertise, users can discover the content that’s precisely relevant to them.
ProQuest’s Historical Collections program covers a diverse range of primary sources, historical newspapers, periodicals, magazines, books, government materials and video, from 1455 to present. Among the new content added to ProQuest’s Historical Collections Program this year:
- News, Policy & Politics Magazine Archive which includes fifteen major serials spanning areas such as current events, international relations, and public policy. A cornerstone of the archive is cover to cover digitization and article-level indexing of every issue of Newsweek published from its founding in 1933. One of the most prominent, widely-circulating magazines of the 20th/21st centuries, it is of high value as a canonical record of news reporting and analysis during this period. It is also notable for its influential investigative articles and its coverage of diverse areas beyond news and international affairs, with regular items spanning business, science and technology, arts/entertainment, travel, family, and more.
- Historical Statistical Abstracts of the United States, (Module 3) covers from 1878 through 1928 to complete the “Stat Ab” archive, a valuable reference tool for researchers seeking in-depth insight into an extraordinary array of key social and economic statistics about the U.S. and its population.
- Declassified government documents from the National Security Archive, containing important materials the U.S. State Department denied existed, Kissinger conversations and CIA daily briefings from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations regarding the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Middle East Peace process and more.
- Digitized documents from the S. State Department and the FBI, including crucial information about Africa and the Middle East in the 1960s. These collections are a dynamic addition to History Vault, including the U.S. Military Intelligence Reports, the U.S. Diplomatic Post Records, the World War II module, the OSS-State Department Intelligence and Research Reports, and the Vietnam War modules.
- Early European Books, (collection 9) includes science and medical books published from the Wellcome Library and the KoninklijkeBibliotheek (KBNL) archives, including rare Incunabula prior to 1500.
- Acclaimed USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, with streaming video.
Historical primary sources are increasingly required at academic libraries for teaching and research. A 2012 Ithaka I&R survey revealed that 80% of humanities faculty assigned primary source materials in classes for lower level undergraduate students. That number goes even higher, to 95% of faculty in humanities departments assigning this content to upper level undergraduates. Additionally, analyses by ProQuest show an increasing reliance on online primary sources in published research. For example, references to digitized newspapers in humanities dissertations has risen each year since ProQuest began its historical newspaper program, according to keyword search analysis.
“ProQuest’s Historical Collections Program delivers unique and diverse primary source materials that have been requested by faculty and researchers in the humanities and social sciences disciplines, said Susan Bokern, ProQuest Vice President, Information Solutions. “Primary sources improve research outcomes by connecting students and faculty to a broader range of original voices written at that moment in history. ProQuest seeks out and enters into strategic partnerships to find and digitize this unique content to support the mission of the library as well as student achievement and researcher success.”
Additional new resources launching later in 2016 include:
- Vogue Italia Archive. Is recognized as one of the most influential editions of Vogue, as well as the most artistic and innovative. Since its launch in 1964, its many ground-breaking initiatives have included the publication of a “Black Issue” and the use of plus-size cover models. It is also known for its social commentary and bold treatment of current issues/events, such as the environment, foreign policy, and domestic violence.
- History Vault collections covering S. State Department files on Asia; Confederate and Union Army Records from the Civil War, including the papers of General Robert E. Lee; and Labor Unions and the American Left.
- Women’s Magazines Archive 2, including,Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day and more.
- Historic Literary Criticism, literary theory texts and essays from the 19th-20th-C, with 100 volumes re-keyed and indexed from Routledge’s Critical Heritage print series.
- Early European Books, (collection 10), covering the Philosophy, History and Social Sciences collection from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BnF).
- Historical Newspapers: Pittsburgh Post Gazette (1786-2008), Philadelphia Enquirer (1829-2009), Minneapolis Star Tribune (1867-2007), Detroit Free Press (1923-2007).
- S. Executive Branch Documents from 1940-1945.
- Supreme Court Insight collection, providing single location for discovery of Supreme Court dockets, opinions, oral arguments and briefs.
