What are Primary Sources?

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, statistics 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.

RUSA (Reference and User Services Association)

For an overview of the different types of sources see  Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources by the University of Maryland Libraries.

Newspapers & Magazines

Includes both full-text databases and online indexes.

Available on-campus only.

Online Sources of Data

There is wealth of data and statistical information freely available online. The trick is finding it all. This is a sampling of data available online. For more, ask a librarian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the web:

On-campus databases:

Data in Reference Books