Before starting your search for archival resources on a particular topic, it may be helpful to bear in mind that our own University of Illinois Archives, located in the basement of the main Library, houses the largest collection of historical manuscripts in Illinois.  Their holdings are strongest in American social, intellectual, and cultural history, particularly for the history of American higher education, agriculture, science and technology, librarianship, and college athletics.  The University Archives has compiled a searchable online control system for their 5,500 archive and manuscript collections. Click here to search this database.

The Illinois Historical Survey, located in the Rare Book and Special Collections Library, is another important resource for archival research.  The Survey contains a wealth of material on Illinois state and local history and the history of the old Northwest.  Manuscript holdings are particularly rich for the history of the colonial and territorial periods, communitarianism in the early 19th century, and labor history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Contact the head of the Survey, John Hoffmann, for further information.

Beyond our own collections, the starting point for identifying or locating archival source material in the U.S. is ArchiveGrid, an online database providing subject access to more than 118,000 collections in 5,500 manuscript repositories. (Note: we no longer subscribe to Archives USA).

ArchiveGrid provides integrated access to several major archival resources. See the website for a full list..

Thousands of Historical societies.
the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), published on a continuing basis from 1959 to 1999,  providing general descriptions of approximately 80,000 collections.  NUCMC is no longer issued in hard copy, but it is available withinArchiveGrid and also exists as a separate entity on the web, offering various auxiliary features; click here to link to the web version.

The National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (microfiche) provides finding aids, published and unpublished, for thousands of repositories.  These are the most detailed descriptions of archival collections available.  There are three parts:  Federal Records; the Library of Congress Manuscript Division; and the massive State Archives, Academic Libraries, and Historical Societies.  NIDS is held in the Reference Library. 

NAIL, or NARA Archival Information Locator, is a prototype online catalog of the holdings of the National Archives and Record Administration in Washington, D.C., the regional branches, and the Presidential Libraries.

Repositories of Primary Sources is an collaborative online archives directory maintained at the University of Idaho Library.

The Online Archive of California is a database of finding aids from numerous California repositories.

There are many published guides to individual archives, as well as guides to archival resources for specific fields or geographic areas.  Russianists, for example, can consult Patricia Grimsted’s Handbook for Archival Research in the USSR (1989) or her more recent Arkhivy Rossii (Archives of Russia, 1997).  For the U.S., there is Donald DeWitt’s Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the U.S.: An Annotated Bibliography (1994).  Similar guides exist for other countries and can be identified using the online catalog, WorldCat, or a printed bibliography of archival guides.

National archives of foreign countries, or archival commissions of foreign governments, often publish series of guides to resources under their auspices.  Examples include the État des Inventaires of the Archives nationals of France (in progress since 1985), or their État General des Fonds (in progress since 1978), or the État des Inventaires des Archives Départementales, Communales et Hospitalières au 1er janvier 1983 (Paris, 1984). The Department of Manuscripts of the British Library has published numerous guides to its collections. The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts has likewise issued dozens of guides to specific collections, as well as inventories of types of collections, such as A Guide to the Reports on Collections of Manuscripts of Private Families, Corporations, and Institutions in Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1914-38).

To search for archival guides in the online catalog and card catalog, use subject headings constructed on the model of [Place]—Archives, or [Subject]—Archives, or Archives—[Place], or search under the corporate heading for the repository.   Guides to archives for various fields or in one particular field may have the heading or subheading “Archival Resources.” After searching the UIUC catalogs, you might run the same search in WorldCat or the Virtual Electronic Library (VEL) of the CIC.

Increasingly, individual archives are mounting their finding aids on the web.  Examples include the University of Illinois Archives, the Library of Congress, Yale University, Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of North Carolina.