Primary Sources
Think of primary sources as original materials and observations. They are information sources that are close to an event, individual, or time period. Examples include: Diaries, Letters, Works of literature, Original documents like a patent or an invention, Birth certificate, Scientific journal reporting original research, Interview, Speech, Painting, Treaty, Raw data, Film, Novel, Autobiography, Email, Discussion threads, Minutes to a meeting, Survey photographs
Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art, buildings, tools, and weapons."*
*American Library Association. Instruction & Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Service Association History Section. http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/pubs/usingprimarysources
Selected Library Databases with Primary Sources
- Gale Nineteenth Century US Newspapers This link opens in a new window A full-text searchable, image database containing newspaper publications from rural and urban areas across the U.S. Includes topics relating to the the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life.
- Issues and Controversies in History This link opens in a new window Issues & Controversies in History places students at the center of the great debates and conflicts in U.S. and world history, exploring the issues as the key players saw them, or, in some cases, as historians have interpreted them. Formerly known as Issues & Controversies in American History, this comprehensive reference database has been expanded to cover every region of the world from antiquity to the present. It delivers dynamic, concise, and balanced coverage of a broad range of topics, from slavery, empire, and revolution to race, gender, economy, and disease, all over the globe.
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowGale Primary Sources is an integrated research environment that allows users to search across all of their Gale primary source collections.
- EBSCO America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new windowThe best database to use to cover the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. This database indexes over 1,700 journals from 1955 to the present with full text access to more than 200 journals and almost 100 books.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowThis rich digital library includes more than 500,000 images from the areas of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, and other forms of visual culture. Images are drawn world-wide from such sources as museums, archaeological teams, photo archives, slide collections, and art reference publishers.
