Introduction and Getting Started: http://www

PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS

1) To begin learning about what primary sources are, and how you can identify and access them, read the following chapter from Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian (New York: Oxford, 2007), Chap. 6. (N.b. this link is an "internal" C of I Intranet reserve document: you must be on campus and logged onto the campus network to access it).

2) In general primary sources are simply the traces left by the people who lived during, observed, wrote about, and acted within the framework of the events and activities of the past. There are as many kinds of primary sources as there are traces from the past, including printed and handwritten documents, artwork, and material artifacts – anything that tells us something about the past. Primary sources are those sources created by people who participated in an event, witnessed it firsthand, or heard about it in the times that it occurred.

3) For your purposes, primary sources can include books, magazines and newspapers printed in the times you are investigating, as well as personal letters and papers (often collected into accessible published book collections), public and official records and publications (also often available in book and published research collections), and other artifacts and images. Some of these will be available in our library, and many other through Inter-Library Loan.

PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS ON THE WEB

1) Below is a sampling of resources available on the web. This is NOT intended to be a comprehensive list. For additional guidance on electronically available primary sources consult the following chapter from Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian (New York: Oxford, 2007), Chap. 7. (N.b. "intranet" document)

2) Remember that primary documents (as well as scholarly articles from professional refereed journals) from the internet are acceptable sources. Anything outside of that must be cleared with with your faculty research advisor.

3) Be sure that you keep a careful record of all of the vital source information from your electronic sources so that you can properly cite the document in your paper and bibliography. This includes “access date.” On how to properly cite electronic sources, see the Chicago Citation Quick Guide (and page down to the "Web site" examples).

4) We will update this list periodically. If there is a site you would like included, please let us know.

GETTING STARTED

Using Primary Sources on the Web
http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/history/rusa/
Brief guide is designed to provide students and researchers with information to help them evaluate the internet sources and the quality of primary materials that can be found online. Written by the Instruction & Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Service Association and User Service Association (RUSA) in the American Library Association.

Library Research Using Primary Sources
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/PrimarySources.html
U.C. Berkeley's Teaching Library's guide to using primary sources includes a helpful working definition and advice on where and how to begin original research.

UTSA: Guide to Primary Sources on the Internet

http://www.lib.utsa.edu/Research/Subject/primarysourcesguide.html

Primary Source Document Directories:

Repositories of Primary Sources

http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/other.html

An excellent place to start for links to various geographic and topical collections.

Directory of Electronic Text Centers

http://tabula.rutgers.edu/ceth/etext_directory/volume.html#mark18

History On-Line

http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Resources/Type/primary.html

Links to Abraham Lincoln’s Speeches, to Political Cartoons, to WWII Posters

Esther Raushenbush Library:

http://www.slc.edu/library/web_resources/selectedsub/humanities/history.htm

History Digital Library: Directory of Online Publications, Special Collections, Exhibits, Journals & Historical Documents

http://www.academicinfo.net/histaalibrary.html

Primary Sources on the Web:

http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/primary.html

Historical Text Archive

http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php

Digital Librarian

http://www.digital-librarian.com/electronic.html

Archives and Primary Sources

http://www.library.ucsb.edu/eresources/epubs/primary.html

Directory of Electronic Text Centers

http://tabula.rutgers.edu/ceth/etext_directory/

Internet Resources for Latin America:

http://lib.nmsu.edu/subject/bord/laguia/

PRIMARY DOCUMENT SOURCES SITES

General/ Global:

Google Books has now scanned an enormous number of eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth-century books (all out of copyright) and provides both keyword searchable text to these (use the advanced search), and also .pdf files of the entire book that can be downloaded. There is thus, in effect, now an enormous nineteenth-century library, including many bound periodicals, at your disposal: http://books.google.com/bkshp?tab=wp. Preferentially, use the Advanced Book Search: http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search

Internet History Sourcebooks Project: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/

Primary and secondary documents from various world regions and time periods.

History Electronic Texts: http://vlib.iue.it/history/materials/e-texts.html

Links to a variety of primary and secondary sources. And also WWW-VL History Central Catalog: http://vlib.iue.it/history/index.html

The U.S. National Security Archive:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/

Declassified US government documents. Documents on Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Nuclear history. Section on Latin America is quite extensive.

Women in World History

http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/wwhprimary.php

Europe & East Asia:

http://history.hanover.edu/texts.html

Sources for General History: Collections of Historical Texts, Images, and Recordings

http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/~dgraf/genhist.htm

Links to dozens of primary source sites from U.S. to Europe.

Hanover Historical Text Project

http://history.hanover.edu/project.html

WWI: http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/

WWI: http://www.firstworldwar.com/

Various primary documents including memoirs, government reports, poetry, weaponry, and art.

Historical Text Archive:

http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php

Numerous documents from the Americas (organized by nations), WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, among others.

Cold War International Project:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.home

Cold War documents from various regions.

Asia:

Columbia University: Asia for Educators

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/

There is a link to primary sources in the box entitled, “Materials”

The Silk Road Seattle Project

http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/texts.html

China Bibliography/ UC San Diego

http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/bibtoc.html

Other sites on Asian topics are available under “Primary Source Document Directories” above.

United States:

Digitized Primary American History Sources:

http://www.library.uni.edu/instruction/digitalhistory.shtml

Links to numerous documents that span U.S. history.

Digital History:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/

Documents from Columbus, to early colonial period, Independence war, famous court cases, newspaper articles, and ethnic history.

Legal Documents: http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/

Legal Documents: http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/index.htm

Digitized Primary American History

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library
http://memory.loc.gov/
Gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 5 million items from more than 90 historical collections.

Library of Congress: Collection Guides and Bibliographies:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/bibguide.html

Links to important U.S. documents.

Primary Sources on the Web: UC Berkeley

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/PrimarySourcesOnTheWeb.html

Europe:

General: http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/index.html

Medieval: http://www.labyrinth.georgetown.edu

French Revolution: http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/

Germany: http://www.csustan.edu/History/Faculty/Weikart/gerhist.htm

Britain: http://www.academicinfo.net/histuklibrary.html

Penny Magazine: http://www.history.rochester.edu/pennymag/