California Digital Library, Free
The Online Archive of California is an initiative of the California Digital Library (which was itself founded by the University of California). The OAC provides free public access to primary sources – manuscripts, photographs, artwork, scientific data, and more through collection guides and 250,000 digitized images and documents. The OAC has more than 20,000 online collection guides. The OAC is an excellent starting point for research-oriented users who want to go beyond what is available online and locate the actual, physical item. Collection guides make it easy to find collections and locate individual objects. These guides provide detailed descriptions of the items in a collection, as well as background, historical studies, and analyses (when available). Access to collection guides (also known as finding aids) is essential to understanding a collection’s content and for determining whether it is likely to satisfy the research needs of a particular project.
OAC collection guides also provide contact information for the institution that maintains the resources: users can connect with a librarian, archivist, or curator in order to learn more about and gain access to the physical materials described in the guide.
OAC hosts three major types of digital content:
- EAD and supplemental PDF collection guides
- MARC collection guide and item-level records
- METS digital objects
Metadata for all objects in the repository — regardless of format — are mapped to the Dublin Core element set for generalizability and to support cross-collection discovery.
It is important to note that the OAC does not own, store, or house any of the materials described in the collection guides.
Summing Up:
Essential for researchers, the OAC contains all of the digitized research from the University of California.