The Big Ten Academic Alliance announced a landmark deal with AM (formerly Adam Matthew) in December 2022. Students, researchers and scholars at these 15 institutions will now have access to millions of pages of essential primary source content from the entire AM core collections portfolio.

The primary resources represent collections held in museums, libraries and government archives from all over the world.

For the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, this agreement gives Nebraska students and faculty access to 69 new databases covering diverse disciplines including U.S. and global history, literature, culture, economics, political science, ethnomusicology, advertising and government documents. They contain full-text materials such as diaries, government documents, personal accounts and correspondence, ship logs, newspapers, photographs and other types of primary documents.

“These additional databases are valued at $6 million dollars’ worth of primary documents and papers, and Nebraska’s contribution, courtesy of our membership in BTAA was $72,000,” said Claire Stewart, dean of the University Libraries.

The ability to draw on this breadth of content across the Big 10 allows for greater inter-institution research and collaborative projects, while at the same time allowing individual members to focus on their own local academic strengths.

According to Charlene Maxey-Harris, associate dean of libraries, the addition expands support of area studies with titles such as: Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980; Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922; and China, America and the Pacific, to name just a few.

“The significance is the diversity in the types of collections and along with geographic diversity with materials and entire collections about countries such as South Africa, China, and areas of Southeast Asia,” Maxey-Harris said.

The databases have been added to the Libraries catalog or explore the entire list of 69 new databases of primary materials in this Libguide.