Ego-documents as research material

29.04.2020

Three databases including ego-documents, reflective writing and oral tradition in library collections: North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral histories; British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries; North American Women’s Letters and Diaries.

In exceptional times and when experiencing personal life changes people often want to reflect their feelings in diaries or letters. Letters are also about keeping in contact and diaries help to organize one’s thoughts as well as to cope with the situation as we have seen in the recent corona diaries.

Over the course of the history, people have given accounts about their personal experiences in writing or in other forms of autobiography. The library’s ego-document databases include  thousands of digitized letters, diaries as well as oral histories.  Spanning more than 300 years, the material covers Canada, America, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales and provides a source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines.

The North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories database offers an interesting personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada. The collection also includes personal narratives of people from Finland and other Nordic countries in the Ellis Island Oral History project. 

All the above mentioned databases can be accessed via Volter database.

For more information and guidance: https://proquest.libguides.com/turku

Created 29.04.2020 | Updated 29.04.2020