Members of the University of Notre Dame Community have access to millions of pages of primary source materials through the Adam Matthew Digital Collection (AM Explorer).

AM Explorer has published primary sources for teaching and research since 1990. The database spans the 15th - 21st Centuries, covering the sciences and humanities. It allows users to access millions of pages of primary source materials and collections gathered and developed in collaboration with archives and libraries worldwide.

The digital collections broach diverse themes such as borders and migrations, gender and sexuality, global history and war and conflict. The content includes photos, video, handwritten text recognition, data visualization and oral histories.

“Gaining access to these Adam Matthew databases greatly expands our researchers' access to primary source materials,” said Mark Robison, interim program leader of Collection Strategy and Acquisitions and political science and peace studies librarian at the Hesburgh Libraries. “The AM Explorer databases are organized into neat, thematic collections, which helps researchers quickly identify materials that might be useful to their projects.”

While the Hesburgh Libraries previously owned a small portion of the collections within the database, AM Explorer features plenty of new resources that Robison thinks will help ND students or faculty members conducting historical research. Through AM Explorer, users can find a range of historical documents, including firsthand accounts of US soldiers who served in World War II, records from the British Foreign Office, the archives of Amnesty International, scripts from the early days of American radio broadcasts and more.

“Adam Matthew's primary source collections are exceptionally user-friendly because of how clearly they are organized,” said Robison. “For example, the Colonial Caribbean collection includes thousands of records documenting the first two centuries of British colonial rule in the Caribbean. Users can easily filter the results by document type (e.g., Diaries, Maps, Public Notices), subject (e.g., Religion, Law & Governance), or specific colony. Each of the AM collections is similarly well organized and cataloged to maximize discoverability.”

Full access to AM Explorer is a pilot. The librarians at the Hesburgh Libraries need faculty, student and staff usage statistics to inform acquisition decisions.

Unlike a typical database acquisition, access to the entirety of the AM Explorer collection is only temporary. At the end of this year, the collections strategy librarians will study how researchers use the database to determine which collections have been accessed, downloaded, and searched most frequently and then permanently purchase two or three of the most used collections.

“These digitized collections include sources that can't be found anywhere else online and would otherwise require a special trip to a faraway archive to view,” he said. “Anyone conducting a project related to social, political, religious, economic, colonial, military, or literary history should take a look at what AM Explorer offers!”

Members of the Notre Dame community looking to use AM Explorer can do so from anywhere worldwide by visiting the Hesburgh Libraries databases and searching AM Explorer. Visitors to campus and members of the public may also access it and other library e-resources using the library’s guest computers located on the first floor of the Hesburgh Library.

For more information, contact Mark Robison, Hesburgh Libraries.