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Finding Primary Sources

What is a primary source?

Primary sources are original artifacts or documents. They offer contemporary accounts from participants or people directly involved in an event.

Examples include:

What is a secondary source?

Scholarly articles, textbooks, and encyclopedias are examples of secondary sources. A secondary source draws on primary sources, often intrepreting and analyzing the material to create a unified work.

Why use primary sources?

Secondary sources are further removed from the events and often reflect the author’s biases. Using primary sources enables you to work with the raw material and draw your own conclusions.

How can I tell if something is a primary source?

The following characteristics can help you differentiate primary sources from those that are not.

Criteria

Authors

Content

Currency/Timeliness

Where can I find Primary Sources?

You can find primary sources at the library and local archives. You can also access primary sources using the library’s or online resources. The following list is not comprehensive, but it includes some good starting points.

A Sampling of Books in the Undergraduate Library Reference Collection:

Other Library Materials

Diaries and Memoirs

From the Online Library Catalog Advanced Search screen:

  1. Type personal narratives into the first box
  2. Select Subject Words from the Search by drop-down menu
  3. Add another search term, for example Anne Frank, to the box below. You might replace personal narratives with diaries, if your search returns too few results.

Correspondence

From the Online Library Catalog Advanced Search screen:

  1. Type correspondence into the first box
  2. Select Subject Words from the Search by drop-down menu
  3. Add another search term, such as World War to the box below.

Musical Scores

From the Online Library Catalog:

  1. Select "Music scores" from the Quick Limits
  2. Enter composer name, title, or keywords in Search by
  3. Click Search

Musical Recordings

From the Online Library Catalog:

  1. Select "Music recordings" from the Quick Limits
  2. Enter composer/performer, song or album title, or other keywords in Search by
  3. Click Search

Films

From the Online Library Catalog:

  1. Select "Films/Videos" from the Quick Limits
  2. Enter title or other keywords in Search by
  3. Click Search

Article and Newspaper Databases

 

The Undergraduate Library’s Find Articles Guide provides resources to search magazines, newspapers, and other sources using databases such as Academic Search Premier (EBSCO).  More specific subject databases will be found under specific categories on the list.

The History, Philosophy, and  Newspaper Library's Historical Newspapers page includes links to databases with hundreds of digitized newspapers.  Look here for African American Newspapers from the 19th Century, Early American Newspapers, and more.

Early American Imprints, 1639 -1800 and Early American Imprints, 1801-1819 include several types of primary source documents, browse by topic or search.

News Transcripts are available through Lexis Nexis Academic.

  1. Enter search terms
  2. in the Search within category select "TV and Radio Broadcast Transcripts"
  3. Specify date
  4. Click Search

Speeches and Interviews can be searched in Academic Search Premier.

  1. On the search page scroll down to the Limit your results section.
  2. From the Document type option box on the right select Speech or Interview.  To search both simultaneously hold down the "Control" key when making a selection.

Editorials:  See the Guide to Finding Editorials to locate editorials.

Images:  See the Guide to Finding Images to locate photographs, paintings, and other images.

Statistics: See the Guide to Finding Statistics to access various sorts of data.

Local Archives

The University Archives includes over 17,000 cubic feet of office records, publications, and personal papers from the University and the Urbana-Champaign campus.

The Student Life and Culture Archival Program of the University Archives includes collections relating to student life and culture on the national level and at the University of Illinois.

The Illinois History and Lincoln Collections contain material on Illinois and local history, in addition to other collections.

Web pages

The American Memory Project, a Library of Congress initiative, offers a diverse collection in a variety of formats (prints, photographs, letters, reports, sheet music, recordings, maps).

The National Archives & Records Administration and Google Video have collaborated to offer a selection of historical video clips.

The National Archives has a huge collection of photographs, documents, reports, and more.

Thomas is a comprehensive guide to legislative information from the Library of Congress.

The New York Public Library Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 685,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections.

The Sheet Music Consortium provides a large collection of digitized sheet music and its cover art.

 

Primary Source Village, from the University of Illinois Library, provides a more detailed tutorial on understanding and using primary sources.