"Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. 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 or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research."
(American Library Association, Reference and User Services, History Section)
Here's a helpful guide (from Carleton College) to help you understand and interpret your primary sources:
Primary sources on specific topics are often collected and published as books. See the information under the Books tab in this guide for details on how to do this!
The two groups of databases below are all ways to find magazine and newspaper articles that could constitute PRIMARY sources depending on your specific topic. The first group are subscription databases.
The two below are individual newspapers:
A good strategy for finding digitized anything about a specific place is to look at the website for the public library or a university library in the area of interest.
You can thank genealogy researchers for two other potentially very valuable resources for collections of digitized newspapers -- from Ancestry.com you get Newspapers.com and then there is Newspaper Archive. In both cases, you can sign up to get free access for 7 days in each case, so, plan accordingly!
Below are some additional projects around newspapers.
A good way to find newspaper digitization projects is to do a Google search formatted like this:
[name of a state] newspaper archives
as in:
virginia newspaper archives
Another option, if you know the name of a newspaper, is to do a Google search formatted like this:
[name of newspaper] archives
Uniquely California!
Thank UC Riverside for the California Digital Newspaper Collection. There are real jewels in here. Best way to find what is available is to BROWSE by Date or County.
These databases are collections of primary sources in a wide, wide, wide variety of formats! They are not easy to use and are best used by carefully and thoughtfully browsing. It can be helpful to have names of persons and places to use in searching them as well.
Start your search for buried digitized treasure (print, video, audio, etc.) on the internet at the Digital Public Library of America, a truly noble effort to "Make millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country available to all in a one-stop discovery experience."
In reading the fine print and the footnotes and references in your secondary sources, you may get names of organizations and resources that are housing primary sources. These kinds of resources are constantly being digitized and made available over the internet. So, you can use Google to see what is available from any particular group.
Another great way to identify digitized primary sources with a particular geographic focus is to the visit the website of the main public library in that area. Local university libraries will also often have research guides that will identify what can end up being real treasure troves of digitized information.
TIPS for efficiently searching Google:
You can find primary sources through a Google search attaching words or phrases ("primary sources" or documents to a search:
navajo code talkers "primary sources"
navajo code talkers documents
The various museums and collections that comprise the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress have created some marvelous internet tools, exhibitions, collections and databases. A quick way to "get in" is to construct complex Boolean search statements to use in a Google search following these three patterns:
word (or phrase enclosed in " ") site:si.edu
word (or phrase enclosed in " ") site:loc.gov
word (or phrase enclosed in " ") site:archives.gov
For example, if I wanted to see what was available about the Navajo code talkers during World War II, remembering that "less is often better searching", I would do these three separate searches in Google:
"code talkers" site:si.edu
"code talkers" site:loc.gov
"code talkers" site:archives.gov
and I would find some incredible primary resources!
SPECIAL NOTE: If your research has a California focus, you have a truly unique resource available to you in the Online Archive of California which includes primary source collections from over 200 institutions, libraries, archives, historical societies, museums, including the Bancroft Library at Berkeley. It's growing all the time, too!
There is a great deal of historical information in government documents and you often need them as primary sources for your research. Our U.S. federal document collection is largely limited to material published since 1964 although we have indexes identifying earlier material which may be available in other Bay Area libraries. California State documents date from 1952. Many of the government documents are cataloged in OSCAR and have been placed in the ARS. Retrieving materials from the ARS is a somewhat complex process and you will need the assistance of staff at the information or circulation desk to assist you.
For more information about government documents, consult the research guide on congressional publications.
If your topic relates to the history of Santa Clara University or the Santa Clara Mission:
1. Make an appointment with Kelci Baughman McDowell in Archives & Special Collections. She can help you locate archival materials on your topic.
2. Check out the student newspaper, The Santa Clara, which was recently digitized.