Library Guides: Middle East & North African History Library Guide: Find Digital Primary Sources

Intro

From historical newspaper databases to U.S. and U.K. national archives and more, you'll find a range of options for accessing MENA primary sources online.

Digital Library of the Middle East

Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME)
The Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME) offers free and open access to the rich cultural legacy of the Middle East and North Africa by bringing together collections from a wide range of cultural heritage institutions. Developed by an engineering team from CLIR and Stanford Libraries, the platform federates and makes accessible data about collections from around the world. Strengths of the current digital collections featured on this site include: manuscripts; art & architecture; newspapers, journals, and magazines; and photography.

Historical Newspapers

These databases include digitized newspapers published in the Middle East & North Africa as well as former colonial powers in the region and the U.S. For a more complete list of international and U.S. historical newspaper databases, see the News and Newspapers Library Guide.

Middle East & North Africa

Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers (Global Press Archive)
Digitized 20th-century newspapers from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Most titles are Arabic-language, with some in French (Algeria, Morocco) and English (Iraq, Morocco).

Jerusalem Post (1932-2008)
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine as The Palestine Post. This database offers full page and article images with searchable full text of every available issue from the newspaper's founding in 1932 through 2008.

Global Collections

Access World News - Historical and Current
A vast collection of more than 16,000 U.S. and global news sources in English, Spanish, French, and many other world languages. Search keywords and limit your results with filters like date ranges, publication locations, and language.
Global Press Archive
The East View Global Press Archive® (GPA), in collaboration with the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), is working to creating one of the most comprehensive collections of digital news sources from around the world. Currently, this expanding collection contains the following subsections/archives: East African Newspapers; El Caribe Digital Archive; El Mundo Digital Archive; Imperial Russian Newspapers; Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers; Izvestiia Digital ArchiveIzvestiia Digital Archive; Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers; Literaturnaia Gazeta Digital Archive; Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers; Prensa Libre; Post-Perestroika Newspapers; Pravda Digital Archive; South Asian Newspapers; and Southeast Asian Newspapers collections.
ProQuest News & Newspapers
An advanced search page for access to all of the ProQuest News databases—both historical and current—available through Tulane University Libraries. Encompasses the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Latin American Newsstream, Le Monde, Historical Black newspapers, Jewish American press, and more.

Tulane provides access to:
- The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger (1857-1922)
- The American Israelite (1854-1874)
- The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1942)
- Atlanta Daily World (1931-2010)
- The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-2010)
- Baltimore Sun (1837-1998)
- The Boston Globe (1872-1993)
- Chicago Defender (1909-2010)
- Chicago Tribune (1849-1998, 2008-present)
- Civil War Era Newspapers & Pamphlets
- The Christian Science Monitor (1908-present)
- Cleveland Call and Post (1932-2010)
- Detroit Free Press (1831-1999)
- The Guardian and The Observer (1791-2003)
- The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times (1859-2022)
- The Jerusalem Post (1932-2008)
- The Jewish Advocate (1905-1990)
- The Jewish Exponent (1887-1990)
- Latin American Newsstream
- Le Monde (1944-2000)
- Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2010)
- Los Angeles Times (2008-present)
- New York Amsterdam News (1922-2010)
- The New York Times (1851-present)
- New York Tribune (1841-1922)
- Norfolk Journal and Guide (1916-2010)
- Philadelphia Tribune (1841-1922)
- Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2010)
- The Scotsman (1817-1950)
- The Times of India (1838-2012)
- The Wall Street Journal (1889-2013)
- The Washington Post (1877-current)
- U.S. Hispanic Newsstream

France

Le Monde (1944-2000)
This database offers full page and article image scans with searchable full text of issues of Le Monde from 1944-2000. Select "Browse Issues" from the menu to peruse content by date.

Gallica - Presse et revues
Portal to digitized newspapers and magazines from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France).

Sub-Saharan Africa

African Newspapers
Full-text 19th- and 20th-century African newspapers, with Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe strongly represented.

U.K.

British Library Newspapers
Sourced from the extensive holdings of the British Library, British Library Newspapers delivers a wide range of local and regional voices to reflect the social, political, and cultural events of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This collection illuminates diverse and distinct regional attitudes, cultures, and vernaculars, providing an alternative viewpoint to the London-centric national press. Tulane subscribes to Parts I & II only, which span 1800-1900.
Times Digital Archive
Access back issues of The Times (London) from 1785-1985.
17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
Newspapers and pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757 - 1817). Published mostly in London, with some representation from provincial England, Ireland, Scotland, Europe and the British colonies.

News testing 7/3/25

U.S.

New York Times (Proquest Historical Newspapers)
This database offers full page and article image scans of The New York Times with searchable full text of every available issue from 1851 to 2020. Select "Browse Issues" from the menu to peruse content by date.
Washington Post (Proquest Historical Newspapers)
This database offers full page and article image scans with searchable full text of every available issue of The Washington Post from 1877 to 2008. Select "Browse Issues" from the menu to peruse content by date.

Printed Books and Manuscripts

Bloomsbury Medieval Studies
Bloomsbury Medieval Studies brings together high-quality secondary content and visual primary sources, including books, artistic objects, and artifacts, for the study of all world regions from c. 300-1500.
Early Arabic Printed Books From the British Library (1475-1900)
Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library (1475-1900) is a full-text searchable digital library of early printed books in Arabic script. The resource covers religious literature, law, science, mathematics, astrology, alchemy, medicine, geography, travel, history, chronicles, and literature. It also includes European translations of Arabic works and Arabic translations of European books.
Modern Arab Renaissance
Books published 1820-1914 from Egypt, Syria and the Islamic World. The collection covers humanistic, intellectual and scientific fields.

Gallica
Gallica is the Digital Library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France). It includes thousands of digitized books, newspapers and magazines, images, maps, manuscripts, and objects.

HathiTrust Digital Library
A partnership of academic & research institutions offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Note: not all titles are available as full-text.

NOTE: Tulane University has switched to using a new method for logging in to HathiTrust. Researchers that have previously built a personal collection in HathiTrust will need to take action to recover access to that collection before December 1, 2024. Instructions for collection recovery can be found at https://www.hathitrust.org/tulane-university-login-changes-september-2024/

Maps

Gallica
Gallica is the Digital Library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France). It includes thousands of digitized books, newspapers and magazines, images, maps, manuscripts, and objects.

Historical Atlas of Islam
An Historical Atlas of Islam is a compilation of maps of the far-reaching Islamic world dating from the inception of Islam until circa 1900, with accompanying annotations.

Old Maps Online
This gateway to historical maps in libraries throughout the world lets you zoom in on particular regions and limit by date.

Photography

Arab Image Foundation
The Arab Image Foundation is a non-profit organization established in Beirut in 1997. It aims to track down, collect, preserve and study photographs from the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab diaspora.
Digital Library of the Middle East - Photography
The DLME has a growing digital collection of photography of the MENA region, including: Sakip Sabanci Museum's Emirgân Archive (Turkey); Richard B. Parker Nile Watercraft Photographs; and Émile Béchard's Oriental Studies Photographs.
Gallica - Images
Portal to digitized images, including photographs, from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France).
Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Online
The Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures, many taken in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Middle East in Early Prints and Photographs - New York Public Library
A portal to search more than 7,000 digitized items from multiple collections of the New York Public Library. Note that many images are prints/ engravings, not photographs.

U.S. National Archives

European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century: French Colonialism in Africa: From Algeria to Madagascar, 1910-1930 (Archives Unbound)
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities. U.S. Consulates were listening posts reporting on the activities of the French colonial government and the activities of the native peoples. Highlights include the beginning of an anti-colonial movement and problems along the Moroccan-Algerian border.
King and People in Morocco, 1950-1959: U.S. State Department Records on the Internal Affairs of Morocco (Archives Unbound)
Digitized records of the Department of State relating to Morocco's internal affairs from 1950 to 1959, documenting the lead-up to independence from France (1956) and the transition to constitutional monarchy.
Democracy in Turkey, 1950-1959: Records of the U.S. State Department Classified Files (Archives Unbound)
Provides access to unique primary source materials on the political, economic and social development of Turkey during a period of democratization in the 1950s.

U.K. National Archives

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981
This collection addresses the policies, economies, political relationships and significant events of major Middle East powers during regional conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli War, the Lebanese Civil War and the Iranian Revolution. Also examined in detail are the military interventions and peace negotiations carried out by regional and foreign powers like the United States and Russia.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
British government Confidential Print files, issued by the Foreign and Colonial Offices, cover the Middle East from Egypt to Afghanistan for the period from 1839-1969.
Middle East Online: Iraq, 1914-1974 (Archives Unbound)
Contains original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers. Iraq 1914-1974 offers the widest range of original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers from the Anglo-Indian landing in Basra in 1914 through the British Mandate in Iraq of 1920-32 to the rise of Saddam Hussein in 1974.
Middle East Online: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 (Archives Unbound)
Offers original source material from the British Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration through the Black September war of 1970-1971.

Digital National Security Archive

The National Security Archive, a nongovernmental entity, curates digital collections of declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews.

You can either search all collections in the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), or search the sub-collections related to the Middle East below. Given the variety of document types in these databases, use the filters in the left-hand column to limit your search to the kinds of materials you're interested in.

Revolution & Protests

Revolution and Protest Online
The Revolution and Protest Online includes materials relating to 21 social movements, including the Arab Spring and Iranian Revolution of 1979. It includes digitized video; primary sources and archival collections; journals, reports, monographs, and speeches; images; and ancillary materials including scholarly essays, bibliographies, sourced chronologies, and links to websites.

North Africa & the Middle East 2011 (Archive-It)-2013
This digital collection documents the events in Northern Africa and the Middle East starting in January 2011. Content includes blogs, social media and news sites about Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and other countries. Countries separated by site groups (scroll down the page to see all of them). Archived content is in Arabic, English, and French.
Egypt Politics and Revolution
A web archive collected by American University in Cairo. provides access to web content related to the contemporary Egyptian political scene, documenting political developments and ideologies, leading players, and various forms of expression. A major focus (and the inception point for the collection) is the January 25, 2011 revolution and its aftermath, from the time of the initial 18 Days of demonstrations at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to subsequent periods of protest and successive changes in government and presidential leadership, through 2013 and 2014.
University on the Square: Documenting Egypt's 21st Century Revolution
Features oral histories, photographs, video recordings, and visual art that document the January 25th Revolution. The digital collection preserves the history of the 18 Days in Egypt and beyond by collecting content from activists, participants, and observers from the American University in Cairo as well as members of the larger Egyptian and global communities.
Tahrir Documents
Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive and translate activist papers from the 2011 Egyptian uprising and its aftermath. Materials were collected from demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and published in complete English translation alongside scans of the original documents. The project is not affiliated with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise. The website https://www.tahrirdocuments.org/ is not working; use this link to access old versions of the website via the Wayback Machine.
Jasmine Revolution - Tunisia 2011
Consists of websites (news, blogs, social media) documenting the revolution in Tunisia in 2011.
Pictures: Tunisia's Uprising
Photograph collection from Al Jazeera.

Israel/Palestine

American Colony in Jerusalem, 1870-2006
The papers of the American Colony in Jerusalem, a non-denominational utopian Christian community, consist of approximately 16,600 items spanning the years 1786-2007, three-fourths of which have been digitized and made available by the Library of Congress.
Columbia University Center for Palestine Studies
The Columbia University Center for Palestine Studies has multiple research and preservation projects: Al Quds Archive, Edward Said Archive, Dreams of a Nation (film), Palestinian Village Histories, Families Interrupted (photography), The Nakba Files, Palestinians and the City, Oral History Project, Jerusalem Maps, The Steven Wachlin Postcard Collection, and Liberation Graphics Collection. Some of these projects include open access to digital primary sources.
Israel State Archives
The Israel State Archives have made available digitized documents across multiple collection types, such as naturalization files, marriage certificates, government and military documents, immigration records, and censuses.
Israel at War: Primary Sources
This collection, curated by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, includes transcripts of speeches and first-hand accounts of Israel's wars from 1948 to 2012.

Middle East Online: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 (Archives Unbound)
Offers original source material from the British Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration through the Black September war of 1970-1971.

Music Collection and Sound Archive - National Library of Israel
The Bella & Harry Wexner Libraries of Sound & Song and The Suzie and Bruce Kovner National Music Archives at the National Library of Israel document, preserve and offer public access to material relating to Israeli and Jewish music. Among the digitized materials are songs by Alexander (Sasha) Argov and Moshe Wilensky.
National Library of Israel - Archives
The archives at the National Library of Israel date back to 1927, with the arrival of the rich personal archive of Ahad Ha'Am. Today, the Library's Archives Department houses over one thousand personal archives, the majority of which bear testimony to the activities of Jewish personalities from a wide variety of spheres: writers and poets, humanists, rabbis, Zionist leaders, scientists, journalists, critics and others. The Historical Jewish Press, Bibliography of the Hebrew Book, Visual Memory photo collection, and more have been digitized.
Palestinian Museum Digital Archive
The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive was launched to collect various documents including identification papers, official records, letters, diaries, manuscripts, maps, photographs, films, and audio recordings that were under threat of loss, damage, or confiscation. Such items were digitized and made widely available on a website open for users inside Palestine and abroad in Arabic and English, to shed light on the different aspects of Palestinian life, history, and legacy.
Palestinian Oral History Archive
Based at the American University of Beirut, the Palestinian Oral History Archive is a project to digitize, index, catalog, preserve, and provide access to an archival collection of around 1,000 hours of testimonies with first generation Palestinians and other Palestinian communities in Lebanon. The Archive's main focus is personal accounts surrounding the Nakba, but it also contains life narratives of pre-1948 Palestine, folktales and songs, as well as stories of the women in Ein el-Helwe camp after its destruction in 1982.
Wilson Center Digital Archive - Israel
The Wilson Center Digital Archive is a resource where students, researchers and specialists can access once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world. Constructed and maintained by the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program (Washington, D.C.), the Digital Archive contains declassified historical materials from archives around the world, including diplomatic cables, high level correspondence, meeting minutes, intelligence estimates, and more.
UNRWA Photo and Film Archive for Palestine Refugees
Ever since it was established, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has recorded all aspects of the life and history of Palestine refugees through film and photography. This has led to a rich audiovisual archive, containing more than 430,000 negatives, 10,000 prints, 85,000 slides, 75 films and 730 videocassettes.

Border Studies

Border and Migration Studies Online
Border and Migration Studies Online is a collection of text, video, and images organized around fundamental themes associated with border and migration issues. It includes primary and secondary source materials for more than thirty key worldwide border areas, including Afghanistan, and Israel, and Turkey.