Evaluating Primary Source Web Sites: Examples

• Is There a Fee for Use?

• Accessible Archives offers fee-based personal subscriptions to their primary source collections. However, these collections are often made available free of charge at public and academic libraries.

• Alexander Street Press offers fee-based subscriptions to libraries of collections of transcribed primary sources.

• Early Canadiana Online offers its full collection of documents at a fee to institutions or individuals, but half the documents are accessible at no charge.

• Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution provides free access to more than 600 primary documents dealing with the revolution.

Image: 1889 map of Port Hadlock, Washington Territory. Courtesy of Early Washington Maps: A Digital Collection.