About: Primary Sources
What is a Primary Source?
A primary source is a first-hand account of an event, time period, or philosophical era.
A primary source may include:
- diaries, journals, speeches, letters, interviews, office memos and other papers if the author was present at the event being written about
- memoirs and autobiographies which are describing events that the author was present for
- government documents, such as census records
- reports and minutes of organizations that reflect events, conditions and ideas of the time
- books, journals and newspapers written at the time of the event in question
- photographs, audio tapes, and film that document an event
- research data documenting scientific data at the time
- artifacts of all kinds, which may include buildings (architecture), household items, cave drawings, clothing, paintings, pottery
Primary sources do not include:
- memoirs or autobiographies that reflect on an event that the author was not present for, unless it reflects the popular opinion of the time
- a critical analysis of a work of literature that was written much later than the actual work
- documentation of ideas or psychology of a time may be found in popular fiction, films, educational material etc produced during that time period
- a critical analysis of an historical event that was written much later
Primary Sources in McDermott Library Databases
- Gale Primary SourcesGale Primary Resources is a research tool that allows researchers to cross-search multiple primary source databases using a single search box. It includes the following databases: Archives Unbound, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, The Making of the Modern World, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, and Sabin Americana 1500-1926 as well as the historical archives of several major periodicals (The Economist, Punch, The Times and more). Each database can also be searched individually.
- Digital National Security Archive (foreign policy)ProQuest's Digital National Security Archive online contains a large collection of primary documents on U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. It includes declassified documents that led to U.S. policy decisions and other collections on the organization and operations of the U.S. intelligence community.
- HathiTrust This link opens in a new windowHathiTrust is a large digital library bringing together materials from sources including Google Books, the Internet Archive, and other commercial digitization projects. This resource is being expanded daily and provides information on more than 10 million volumes with more than a third of these available for full text access and download (primarily books and journals published before 1923 and U.S. Government publications).
