LibGuides: Primary Sources & Where To Find Them: Primary Sources

What Are Primary Sources?

Primary sources can be many things. What they all have in common is that they are original material based on first-hand experience or observation. Examples of primary sources include, but are not limited to:

Autobiographies and memoirs
Letters and diaries
Oral histories
Financial records, such as ledgers or tax returns
Musical and video recordings
News reports
Research data or findings
Government documents
Artifacts

Secondary sources, by contrast, are typically based on primary sources and/or other secondary sources. Most non-fiction books and other kinds of literature would fall into this category. While neither type of source is inherently "better" than the other, primary sources have the advantage of being closer to actual events, and for this reason they are relied on more heavily at advanced levels of research. Depending on your field of study, you will likely be required to use primary sources at some point.

The box below lists library databases composed partly or solely of primary source material.

Primary Source Databases

American Civil Liberties Union Papers
The records of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on free speech, citizenship, race, discrimination, immigration, labor, radicalism, and related topics support the study of American legal history and complement the modules in the Making of Modern Law series. Documents include newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, court files, memorandums, telegrams, minutes, and legal case records. The papers are held at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University.
ArchiveGrid
Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, even in museums and libraries outside of the United States.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part 1 & 2
Archives of Sexuality & Gender program modules one and two includes historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, publications by and for lesbians and gays, extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis, personal correspondence and interviews with LGBTQ individuals, international gay/lesbian newspapers. Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950-1990.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800
Provides full text, digital images of books, pamphlets, broadsides and periodicals published in America from 1639-1800.
Gale Primary Sources
Gale Primary Sources searches within all of the Gale primary document collections to which CWU has access, including the Archives of Sexuality & Gender, Indigenous Peoples of North America, and American Civil Liberties Union Papers.
HeinOnline
Provides full-text access to an extensive collection of modern and historical legal periodicals and monographs including documents on international and foreign jurisdiction, U.S. treaties, U.S Supreme Court, U.S. Attorney General, and more. The format is image-based, presenting the exact page image and complete contents of the original materials.
ProQuest History Vault: NAACP Papers
The NAACP Papers collection consists of 6 modules which contain internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. The documents range from 1909- 1972. The NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the triumphs of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond. Includes access to the following 6 modules: NAACP Papers: Board of Directors, Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and National Staff Files; NAACP Papers: Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth Department Files; NAACP Papers: Special Subjects; NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Education, Voting, Housing, Employment, Armed Forces; NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Legal Department Files; NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Scottsboro
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
This collection, offered free by HeinOnline, brings together, for the first time, all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, all reported state and federal cases on slavery and hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery—defending it, attacking it or simply analyzing it.

Cabell's International Business Directory
Cabells is the complete source for journal info, evaluation metrics, and submission details for Accounting, Economics & Finance, Management, and Marketing.
Hoover's Online
Provides company profiles, corporate directory (searchable by company name, industry, ticker symbol, sales, location), market quotes, and business news.

NOTE: Hoover's is not compatible with mobile devices.
S & P Global NetAdvantage
- This link opens in a new window
NetAdvantage gives reference users the core intelligence they need for in-depth company and industry research in the digital age, and is the go-to resource to evaluate performance, analyze financials and gather market data and access: Corporate Records, Stock Reports, Industry Survey, Register, Outlook, Stock Guide, Bond Guide, Earning Guide, Dividend Record, and Mutual Fund Reports.
USA Trade Online
The official source for U.S. merchandise trade data and statistics, maintained by the Foreign Trade Division of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Please Note: Library Use Only. A password is required to use this database; please see the Government Publications Dept. on the 3rd Floor for access to this database within the library.
Value Line
Includes full-page reports and analyst commentaries as well as timeliness and safety rankings on 1,700 stocks covered by The Value Line Investment Survey.

Homeland Security Digital Library
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Grants and Training and the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security, this is an indexed collection of homeland security policy and strategy related documents.
Military & Government Collection
Current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government, this database offers a thorough collection of academic journal articles, primary documents (speeches, letters, text of important government documents such as acts and treaties) in U.S. history. Provides cover-to-cover full text for nearly 300 periodicals and indexing and abstracts for nearly 400 titles.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Database This link opens in a new window
The NCJRS Abstracts Databasehas records for information from the 1970s to the present, including "more than 210,000 publications, reports, articles, and audiovisual products from the United States and around the world. These resources include statistics, research findings, program descriptions, congressional hearing transcripts, and training materials." This is not a full text source, but directs you to useful information.
National Security Archive
An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States.
ProQuest Congressional: U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection
A collection of materials published in a “serial” fashion by and for the use of Congress covering almost all house and senate reports and documents published since 1817. These include House and Senate Journals (until the 1950s), committee and conference reports related to and those not related legislation, Presidential messages to congress, executive branch publications, Statistical Abstract of the US (1879 on), Budget of the US, treaty items, and materials from various non-governmental entities as well.
ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States
The ProQuest StatisticalAbstract of the United States is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political and economic conditions of the United States.

Hein Online
HeinOnline is a premier online research platform that provides more than 193 million pages of multidisciplinary periodicals, essential government documents, international resources, case law, and much more.

Alternative Press Index
Indexes 1991 to the present. The "Alternative" in the title might suggest any non-mainstream media, but it is actually left or liberal leaning. While API indexes a mix of scholarly and non-scholarly materials, it does not offer a "peer reviewed" check box. It is a bibliographic database; click on the "i" icon for more information about that.
A bibliographic database does not contain full text. However, you may be able to get access by using the "search for full text" link to find articles in other databases, in print in the library, or request the article from another library. You may also be able to find a free online copy of an article by entering the article title (in quote marks so the search will be for the title as a phrase) in Google and Google Scholar. More help is available at http://support.ebsco.com/help/index.php?help_id=DB:813
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Indigenous Newspapers in North America presents the publications of a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.
Global Newsstream (ProQuest)
Global Newsstream (formerly ProQuest Newsstand) contains full-text national and international news content, with some coverage dating back to 1980. Features newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites. Includes major newspapers such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
Newspaper Source Plus
Newspaper Source Plus includes more than 860 full-text newspapers, providing more than 35 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 857,000 television and radio news transcripts.
Nexis Uni [formerly LexisNexis Academic]
Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Christian Science Monitor
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Full Text Included. Coverage: 1908-2009
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Guardian and The Observer
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Full Text Included. Coverage: 1791 - 2003
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Full Text Included. Coverage: 1851-2019
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Full Text Included. Coverage: 1877-2006
The Times Digital Archive
First published in 1785, The Times of London is widely considered to be the world's 'newspaper of record'. The Times Digital Archive allows users to search over 200 years of this invaluable historical source.

Access World News (Newsbank)
NewsBank provides a comprehensive collection of reliable news sources covering a wide array of topics and issues.

The Sunday Times Historical Archive, 1822-2006
Completely separate from the Times of London, the Sunday Times is known for their investigative journalism, providing commentary and analysis of the week's news. The Sunday Times Historical Archive provides a complete searchable run of the newspaper from 1822 to 2006. Formerly Sunday Times Digital Archive

Music Online: Classical Music Library
- This link opens in a new window
The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming classical music available online with thousands of composers, ensembles, albums, and genres. It includes all major genres and time periods from medieval to contemporary, from choral works to symphonies, operas, and the avant-gard.

MorphoSource
MorphoSource is a project-based data archive that allows researchers to store and organize, share, and distribute their own 3d data. Furthermore any registered user can immediately search for and download 3d morphological data sets that have been made accessible through the consent of data authors.
The goal of MorphoSource is to provide rapid access to as many researchers as possible, large numbers of raw microCt data and surface meshes representing vouchered specimens.
*Users must create a free MorphoSource account to download data
OAIster
OAIster is a database of over 20 million items held digitally at nearly 1100 libraries, museums, and organizations. Types of files include digitized (i.e., scanned) books and articles; born-digital texts; audio files (e.g., wav, mp3); images (e.g., jpg, gif); movies (e.g., mp4, quicktime); and datasets (e.g., downloadable statistics files).

Primary Sources in OneSearch

Although there isn't an option in OneSearch for filtering search results by whether they are primary or secondary sources, one can use the Resource Type filter group to select only types that would qualify as primary.

Primary Sources & Where To Find Them

Related Guides

Senior Lecturer, Archives and Special Collections

What Are Primary Sources?

Primary Source Databases

Primary Sources in OneSearch