Searching Primary Sources & Archive Collections

In addition to using the resources on this guide, think about who is likely to have sources pertaining to your topic. Is it a topic of particular relevance to a geographical area? Look for state and regional historical societies online. Universities in an area may also be a source to try.

When looking for primary sources, you need to consider:

• Who would create the documents? 
  • Who can be individuals or groups, such as local, regional, or international organizations, associations, and governmental agencies.
  • When reading secondary and primary sources, make a list of the names you encounter. Search these names as authors in library databases.
• How would the documents be preserved and accessed?
  • Formally published/produced, such as books, newspaper and magazine articles, films, music, court cases, etc.
    • Search library databases to find these materials.
  • Informally published/produced, such as press releases, reports, policy statements, etc.
    • For government materials, search government information resources 
    • For companies and organizations, try the Internet Archive.
  • Personal or internal documents, such as diaries, letters, research interviews, internal memos, etc 
    • May no longer exist
    • May not be publicly available (could be in personal files only)
    • May have been deposited with a library archive, museum, historical site, or corporate/organization archive
    • Look for finding aids and digitized documents at the institution that holds the papers.
    • May have been collected and published

Archives are any material that been identified as having a lasting historical value. These items document the lives and activities of people, associations, businesses, and university departments. They were given to the archives, most often by the people who created them, so that they could be preserved and made available to others. They are materials that were created by a person, but has not been interpreted by others. Archives are unique, unpublished resources that are not availalbe anywhere else.

The material held in archives is organized and stored differently than in a library. Archival material is typically organized into manuscript collections or records groups. The size of these collections may be as small as a single item or large enough to fill hundreds of boxes. 

For example, here is an explanation on how the U.S.National Archives Catalog is organized and tips for searching.

Finding aids are inventories that describe archival collection contents in greater detail.  The parts of a finding aid typically states the collection title, collection number, dates of the material, the extent to how large a collection is and a brief description of what materials may be included in the collection.  It will also provide the full collection title and collection number (collection numbers are like call numbers on a book) that you may need to use when requesting the materials from the archivist if physical access is required.  Luckily, many archives & libraries around the world have been actively digitizing these materials so they can be made available online.  Use finding aids to locate processed archival collections in archives, libraries, and museums. Finding aids are increasingly available online and freely accessible.

Here is an example of the finding aid for the Frederick Douglass Papers held at the Library of Congress where the manuscript example presented on this guide page was located.

When searching online, or via library databases, adding primary source-related keywords to your search will help you to more easily locate primary source materials. For example, if you are searching for primary sources on the Women's Suffrage Movement, search the phrase "Women's Suffrage" with the keyword "papers" (i.e., "women's suffrage" AND papers). Other keywords that can be used to locate primary sources are:​​​​​​

• documentary history
• memoirs
• autobiography
• diaries
• letters
• pamphlets
• ephemera
• speeches
• eyewitness
• correspondence
• reports
• archives
• interviews
• personal narratives

You can enter more than one of these phrases in a search box, connected by typing the word "or" - for example, sources or diaries or journals