Table of Contents
What are Primary Sources?
- Yale University Library provides an excellent description of primary sources.
"Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented. Often these sources are created at the time when the events or conditions are occurring, but primary sources can also include autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories recorded later. Primary sources are characterized by their content, regardless of whether they are available in original format, in microfilm/microfiche, in digital format, or in published format."
UNF Library Catalog -- strategies for finding primary sources
Remember that the all academic libraries use the Library of Congress Classification System and subject headings. Once you find a good subject heading, you can find all the items in the library on that topic.
So -- be sure to look at the full record and use keywords from the subject headings to do another search or you may see the perfect subject heading that you can just click on.
- correspondence
- presidents and correspondence
- soldiers and correspondence
- diaries
- personal narratives
- speeches, addresses, etc.
- campaign speeches
Try this search. It also gets you correspondence (look at the subject headings
in the full record).
- papers of george washington
Try this search in quotes (forcing a phrase) to browse.
Congressional hearings are primary sources. Most of the current hearings are online.
- senate hearing tobacco
- house of representatives hearing tobacco
- committee hearing tobacco
Adding the word "sources" to your search will many times get you primary documents. It doesn't always work but often enough to be extremely useful -- and, it leads you to sources that will
tell you about primary sources and give you citations and locations.
- united states history and sources
Newspapers
Digitized and Online
Newspapers on Microfilm in the UNF Library
Examples of Print Indexes to Newspapers on Microfilm
- New York Times Index -- Call number AI21 .N44. Print index begins with 1851.
How to use the print index.
- Times Index (Times of London) -- Call number AI21 .T42 -- Online index covers 1906 to 1980. Print index begins with 1785
Online Sources
UNF subscribes to online research databases that may include primary sources.
If you are off campus, you must log
in to the library before clicking on
a database below.
- Law cases are primary documents. You
can get the full text from LexisNexis
Academic or Campus Research. They are both available from this list of databases.
For example, you can get the full text of the 1841 Amistad slave rebellion Supreme Court case. Case citation 40 U.S. 518.
- Travels in the New South I and
II, 1865-1955. The microfiche are on the 3rd Floor.
Here is the online
list of titles with microfiche numbers.
Travel accounts provide
a primary source for researchers in many fields. This collection is based
on Thomas D. Clark’s bibliography
and offers various accounts of life in the post-Civil War South. This collection
details the state of Southern culture during three-quarters of a century
as the South continued its struggle back to equality with the rest of the
nation. The works include the post-war years, 1865-1900, an era of reconstruction
and readjustment; and 1900-1955, an era of change and renewal.
- American
State Papers, 1789-1838. Legislative and executive documents, many
originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning
of the "U.S. Congressional Set" in 1817.
- U.S.
Congressional Serial Set, 1817- presently covers through 1976 but
is extended monthly. Reports, documents and journals
of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published
in approximately 13,800 bound journals.
- Google Books has scanned thousands of books and government documents from major libraries. If the books are out of copyright or if they have publisher approval they will be available in full text. This means thousands of very old books that are valuable to historians will be freely available online.
You can search Google Books from within the UNF library catalog. Just do a regular search and then click on "Try Google Books" from the bottom of the facet on the left. It will do the same search in Google Books. Click on the down arrow beside "Showing" and select "Full view only".
- Google News Archives is in the early stages but is already providing many historical newspapers and magazines full text. Here is more information.
Many libraries and government agencies are making their primary sources
available through the Internet.
Other Research Guides
Some guides use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to access portable document files (pdf).
|
