Definitions
What makes a source
primary?
Depends on the topic;
it can be complicated.
Talk specifics with your advisor.
Very basic, simplistic definition:
What is a primary source?
Useful Tips
Browse footnotes and bibliographies of books, encyclopedias, and articles for information about primary sources.
Search the Library Catalog for primary sources--both unpublished manuscripts
and modern editions in print and online, sometimes in translation, of
original primary medieval sources. Use the guided keyword search with terms like:
sources
diaries
personal narrative
interview
letters
Newspapers Tips
With the exception of the
collections listed here,
newspapers are generally
not available full text before 1980,
especially non-US papers.
But older newspapers are
often available on microfilm
and can be interlibrary loaned.
There will be no index and
using newspapers on microfilm
is hard, time-consuming work.
To locate newspapers on
microfilm, use Worldcat:
country = subject
newspaper* = keyword,
limit = serial publications
format = microfilm.
Do NOT specify dates.
Archives
Kroch
Rare and Manuscript Collections
The Rare and Manuscript Division is located in an underground addition attached
to Olin Library. It houses manuscripts from a variety of periods and several
special collections.
Archives typically have websites with basic information and contacts if not guides to and catalogs of their collections. Major archives and repositories generally publish guides in print which often can be found through a keyword search (using the name of the archive) in the CU catalog, Worldcat, or RLIN.
Selected print and online guides:
ArchivesUSA Information about primary source materials from nearly 4,500 manuscript repositories in the United States.
ArchiveGrid
Open the Door to History. Includes a searchable database for catalog records for archival collections
and items.
National Archives and Records Administration
British archives : a guide to archive resources in the United Kingdom. 3rd ed. (Olin Reference CD1040 .F75 1995)
Primary Source Collections
Primary Source Collections Online
Evans digital edition (American Imprints) Books printed in the US during the 17th and 18th century American life.
Eighteenth century collections online (ECCO). English-language and foreign-language books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera printed in the UK and the Americas, between 1701 and 1800.
Early English books online (EEBO) Covers 1450-1661.
Guide to full text of pre-1800 Imprints, British and American at Cornell
Early
encounters in North America: peoples, cultures, and
the environment. 1534 to 1850. The collection
focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of
the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers,
native peoples, and officials, both men and women.
American
journeys eyewitness accounts of early American exploration and settlement. Eyewitness accounts of North American exploration,
from the sagas of Vikings in Canada to the diaries of mountain men
in the Rockies.
Making of America Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library Primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.
ARTFL Full-text online of nearly 2000 French texts seventeenth to twentieth centuries.
Gallica Includes many digitized collections of primary sources originally published in the 19th century.
AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive. Current and historical images for the last 150 years from the Association Press.
Southeast Asia Visions is a digital collection of European travel accounts of pre-modern (1613 - 1920s) Southeast Asia.
Newspapers
Primary Source Newspapers
United States
American Historical Newspapers Online
ProQuest historical newspapers. The New York Times (1851-2003), the Wall Street Journal (1889-1989), the Washington Post (1877-1990), every page from every issue in PDF files.
Lexis Nexis Academic US news as of 1980.
America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1876.
Accessible archives: primary source material from 18th and 19th century periodicals.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers In development. Newspaper pages from 1880-1910
Poole's Plus: Indices to Nineteenth-Century Newspapers, Periodicals, Books and Government Documents
International
Lexis Nexis Academic News from around the world as of 1980.
Historical Newspapers Online. The Official index to the Times, Palmer's index to the [London] Times.
Foreign Broadcast Information Services (FBIS) daily reports, 1974-1996. Official US government English translations of radio and television transcripts and newspaper articles from around the world. Begun in the 1940s. Pre-1974 text on microfiche, see Locating FBIS Microfiche in Olin Library.
Paper of record. Historical archive of full-page newspaper images dating from the 1700's. Included are newspapers from Australia, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and United States of America. Many of these titles date from the early 1800s to the mid 1900s.
Periodicals
Primary Source Periodicals
Periodicals Index Online (formerly PCI) Covers 1770-1993. Index. The scope is international, including journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages.
Readers' guide retrospective. Comprehensive index of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States 1890 through 1982.
Internationale Bibliographie der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur: IBZ. (in print in Olin Reference) A German index of a significant proportion of the periodicals published on the European continent. 19th century.
American Periodical Series/APS online. 1740-1900. Indexes special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children’s and women’s magazines. Useful for historical advertising.
Official Sources
Official GovernmentCollections
Foreign relations of the United States: electronic facsimile. Some years may not be available. Also available through the Department of State
U.S. Congressional serial set (Online) 1817-1980 Full text of all the reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Still in progress.
A century of lawmaking for a new nation: U.S. Congressional documents and debates, 1774-1873 Presents records and acts of Congress from the Journals of the Continental Congress through The Congressional Globe, which ceased publication with the Forty-second Congress in 1873.
Finding Guide to U.S. Government Documents at Cornell
Research Guide for UN Documents at Cornell
British History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Included are the House of Commons Journal and House of Lords Journal
Finding British Sessional Papers at Cornell
The making of modern law: legal treatises 1800-1926. The Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century Legal Treatises microfilm collections and 21,000 Anglo-American legal works including casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches as well as material that isn't narrowly legal.
Virginia Cole |
****Help from a librarian (you might not get me) is only a click away:
Virginia Cole
106 Olin Library
607-255-5359
Send Email
Subjects:
medieval studies, history, digital reference, citation management
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