This is a non-exhaustive list of organisations all over the world that have the potential to intersect with expatriate life. If you know of an archive, library, or other collection that you think may be suitable for this list, let us know at pr@xpatarchive.com.
Ajam Digital Archive: An online database for media and materials from twentieth-century Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia and their environs. It also includes materials from the diaspora communities of these regions.
The Arapesh Grammar and Digital Language Archive: The archive was conceived as a way of preserving, integrating, and disseminating some of the rich documentary material that has been produced on the Arapesh languages of Papua New Guinea.
The Archive of Israeli Music: Collects all items connected to the subject of music in Israel and of Israeli composition — notes, books, photographs, recordings, etc.
Archives Portal Europe: Provides access to information on archival material from different European countries as well as information on archival institutions throughout the continent.
Atria: Institute for women’s history and gender equality, based in The Netherlands.
The Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council: Independent nonprofit organisation founded as a voluntary association with a goal to foster cooperation between public and private archives, broadcasting and TV archives, libraries and museums that possess collections of audiovisual materials about the Baltic States, Scandinavian countries and the worldwide Baltic diaspora.
The Black Archives: Documents the history of black emancipation movements and individuals in the Netherlands. They have more than 10.000 books in the collections that focus on racism and race issues, slavery and (the) colonisation, gender and feminism, social sciences and development, Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, South America, Africa and more.
Black Cultural Archives: An archival collection offering insight into the history of people of African and Caribbean descent in Britain.
British Cartoons Archive: Dedicated to the history of British cartooning over the last two hundred years. The BCA holds the artwork for over 200,000 British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons, supported by large collections of comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.
The British Library | Blogs: blogs from library’s curators, subject specialists and guest bloggers.
The Burns Archive: Best known for providing photographic evidence of forgotten, unseen, and disquieting aspects of history with a focus on early medical photography.
The Caren Archive: One of the largest and most important US-based private archives of original and rare newspapers, manuscripts, photographs, posters, broadsides, postcards, ephemera, etc.
Catena Digital Archive of Historic Gardens and Landscapes: A searchable collection of historic and contemporary images that include plans, engravings, paintings, and photographs to teach landscape studies, integrate images and educational materials, and better simulate the experience of landscapes, among other goals.
Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery: A web-based initiative designed to foster inter-site, comparative archaeological research on slavery throughout the Chesapeake, the Carolinas, and the Caribbean.
Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives: A publicly available archive of personal literacy narratives in a variety of formats (text, video, audio) that together provide a historical record of the literacy practices and values of contributors, as those practices and values change.
Digital Transgender Archive: The purpose of the DTA is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitised historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
The Ethics of Suicide Digital Archive: This archive and its associated text volume are intended as a comprehensive source book, a collection of primary texts covering as fully as possible the immense range of thinking about the ethics of suicide in both the Western and non-Western traditions, as well as in both literate and oral cultures.
EU Migration Map: This interactive map shows the proportion of workers in some EU nations that come from other EU nations, based on skill levels.
European Oil & Gas Archives Network: A European network of professional archives, cultural institutions and companies related to oil and gas, with the purpose of promoting the retention and use of relevant archives and the sharing of skills and experience.
Feminist Archive North: The FAN holds a wide variety of material relating to the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) from 1969 to the present. Topics covered by FAN include the women’s peace movement, women’s studies, women and development, and violence against women.
Feminist Webs Archive: Feminist Webs is a ‘women and girls work space’ that acts as an archive and a resource for practitioners, volunteers and young women involved in youth and community work with young women. The archive has a physical collection as well as an online, digital collection.
Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender History: A large collection of artifacts and stories, from the 1950’s to the present, focusing on the Texas Gulf Coast area. Facilitates education and research for all interested in learning about the GLBTQ community.
HSBC Expat Explorer Survey: See how countries compare for different aspects of expat life from personal finance to education and childcare.
The Immigrant Archive Project: The Immigrant Archive Project’s mission is to record, archive and share the stories of immigrants in the United States in order to help us understand the immigrant experience and its vital contribution to American society.
The International Archive of Women in Architecture: Documents the history of women’s contributions to the built environment by collecting, preserving, and providing access to the records of women’s architectural organisations and the professional papers of women architects, landscape architects, designers, architectural historians and critics, and urban planners.
International Dialects of English Archive: Created in 1998 as the internet’s first archive of primary-source recordings of English-language dialects and accents as heard around the world. With roughly 1,400 samples from 120 countries and territories, and more than 170 hours of recordings, IDEA is now the largest archive of its kind.
Internet Archive: A non-profit digital library with the stated mission of ‘universal access to all knowledge’. It provides free public access to collections of digitised materials, including web sites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and nearly three million public domain books.
The Iowa Women’s Archives: The archive holds more than 1200 manuscript collections that chronicle the lives and work of Iowa women, their families, and their communities. These personal papers and organizational records date from the nineteenth century to the present. They document the activities of Iowa women throughout the state and beyond its borders.
Jewish Women’s Archive: The Jewish Women’s Archive documents Jewish women’s stories, elevates their voices, and inspires them to be agents of change.
Language & Culture Archives: The Archives contains works collected, compiled, or created by SIL International, its strategic partners, or members of ethno-linguistic minority communities.
Lesbian Herstory Archives: The world’s largest collection of materials by and about lesbians and their communities.
The Feminist Institute (TFI): Documents and celebrates feminist contributions to culture by preserving and digitizing archival materials for public access.
The LGBT Community Center National Archive: Founded in 1990 by volunteer archivist Rich Wandel, the archive provides a look into the lives and experiences of LGBT people in the United States throughout the years. The Center Archive contains a wide range of media from as early as 1920, including photos, correspondence, news clippings and videos.
The Louis Shotridge Digital Archive: Created to make the remarkable Shotridge collection accessible to scholars, students, and community leaders interested in learning more about Southeastern Alaskan Native history and culture.
Marcel Breuer Digital Archive: A collaborative effort headed by Syracuse University Libraries to digitise more than 30,000 drawings, photographs, letters and other materials related to the career of Marcel Breuer, one of the most influential architects and furniture designers of the twentieth century.
Meredith Monk Archive: Documents the art of New Yorker Meredith Monk and the history of The House Foundation For The Arts, Monk’s management and production company.
The National Center for Farmworker Health Archives: A searchable database of downloadable research, patient education materials, news articles, and other sources related to migrant health and farmworkers from the 1930s to present day.
National Fairground and Circus Archive: The collection embodies the history of popular entertainment in the United Kingdom from the seventeenth century onward, covering every aspect of the travelling fair, circus and allied entertainments as well as the culture, business and life of travelling showpeople.
National Jazz Archive: This archive holds the UK’s finest collection of written, printed and visual material on jazz, blues and related music, from the 1920s to the present day.
Native American Women Playwrights Archive: A collection of original materials by Native women playwrights of the Americas, hosted by Miami University. NAWPA aims to identify playwrights, collect and preserve their work, make it more widely known, and encourage performances.
OECD International Migration Database: Data sets to assist with quantitative research on global migration.
Prozhito: A Russian-language electronic archive of manuscripts, and a text corpus of personal diaries.
Public Secrets: Archival records of experiences of incarcerated women.
Rigler-Deutsch Index Computer Tapes: Computer tapes containing data from the Rigler and Deutsch Index of Recorded Sound (RDI), a union catalog of 78-rpm disc holdings from several major research libraries, including the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound.
The Royal Archives: From diaries and personal letters to account books and speeches, the collections held by the Royal Archives record and reflect some of the most significant moments in British history and provide a fascinating insight into the life and work of past monarchs, their families, households and residences.
Seven Stories: A collection of all sorts of material relating to British children’s books — not just the finished work, but all that goes into the making of a book: rough artwork, draft manuscripts, dummy books, correspondence, editors notes, proofs, and anything else that helps us explore how books are created.
The Travel Film Archive: A collection of travelogues and educational and industrial films — many of them in colour — that show the world the way it was between 1900 and 1970.
The Turing Digital Archive: This website contains nearly 3,000 images of letters, photographs, newspaper articles, and unpublished papers by or about Alan Turing. The images were scanned from the collection of Turing papers held in the Archive Centre at King’s College, Cambridge, UK.
United Nations Population Division: The latest data, publications and other information about global population and migration trends.
Vatican Apostolic Archive: The Archivio Apostolico Vaticano pursues it specific activity aimed at preserving and enhancing the deeds and documents related to the government of the Universal Church. It primarily serves the Roman Pontiff and the Holy See and secondly offers its services to scholars of all faiths from all nations.
Viktor Frankl Institute Vienna: A scientific society with the goal of maintaining and fostering the life work of Viktor Frankl and to provide access to authentic information about logotherapy and existential analysis.
The Wilson Center Digital Archive: The Digital Archive is a resource where students, researchers and specialists can access once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world.
The Women Artists Archives National Directory: An innovative web directory to U.S. archival collections of primary source materials by and about women visual artists, active in the U.S. since 1945.
The Women’s Archives Initiative: Linking researchers with original materials on the history of the women’s movement in Canada.
The Women’s Art Library: The WAL collects slides, artist statements, exhibition ephemera, catalogues, and press material in addition to audio and videotapes, photographs and CD-Roms. Donations from women artists to help develop this collection are welcome.
The Women’s Library: The oldest and largest library in Britain devoted to the history of women’s campaigning and activism.
The Women and Leadership Archives: Established in 1994, the archive collects, preserves, and makes available permanently valuable records of women and women’s organizations. Collection strengths include the subject areas of activism and women’s issues, authors, education, environmental issues, public service, social justice, and visual arts.
The Women in Photography International Archive: A grassroots, research-oriented agency. Its origins date from 1971, starting with a systematic study of the women photographers of California. Currently, the emphasis has shifted to include data concerning the role of women in photography globally.
Women Working, 1800-1930: An exploration of women’s impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented.
Working Class Movement Library: A treasure trove with records of over 200 years of organising and campaigning by ordinary men and women.
Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive: The Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive has two goals. Its primary purpose is to provide an academic site that will provide a repository of biographical, historical, critical, and other contextual materials related to Hurston’s life and work.