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Primary Source Materials

About Primary Source Materials in Snell Library

Most materials one finds in a library, such as books, documents, journals, and media, may be divided into either Primary or Secondary Source materials. They may be either print or electronic. Primary Source materials are quite often the “building blocks” upon which Secondary Source materials are based.

Primary Sources are original, first-hand observations or accounts of events or experiments. They may include books, journal or newspaper articles, audio-visual materials, many government documents, statistical data, and archival materials.

Secondary Sources are most often interpretations or analyses of primary source information. Most secondary sources found in libraries are in the form of books, journal articles, and reference materials.

Examples of Primary Sources

  • Audio recordings of a speech or oral history
  • Autobiographies, diaries, or letters
  • Certain government documents, such as congressional hearings or agency reports
  • Interviews
  • Journal articles which report first hand observations
  • Newspaper accounts of events
  • Photographs or moving images of an event
  • Records of an organization, often kept in Archives

Examples of Secondary Sources

  • Biographies
  • Most books, unless they are first hand observations of events or experimental research
  • Most journal articles, unless they are first hand observations of events or experimental research
  • Newspaper editorials
  • Reference materials, such as encyclopedias and handbooks

How to Find Primary Sources:

Books

Use NuCat, the library catalog, to find books. Search by a keyword AND a term limiting your results to a type of primary source. For example, Roosevelt and Correspondence or Civil Rights and Interviews.

Journal Databases

A number of journal databases allow one to search for journal articles on a topic and limit the results to primary sources. One database which has this feature is Academic Search Premier. Other journal databases allow limiting a search to particular types of primary sources. For example, in Medline one can limit a search to primary source articles on "clinical trials."

Primary Source Databases

The library also has numerous databases comprised mostly of primary source materials. A listing of a number of these databases and the types of primary source materials they contain follows:

  • American State Papers (legislative documents from 1789 to 1817)
  • Boston Globe (newspaper articles 1980-present)
  • Global Newsbank (newspaper articles and radio transcripts 1996-present)
  • Historical Statistics of the U.S. (statistical data from the colonial period to the present)
  • Lexis Nexis Academic (includes 100s of newspapers, both US and international)
  • Lexis Nexis Congressional (US House & Senate documents, hearings, and reports)
  • Lexis Nexis Statistical (1000s of statistical charts from government and non-government sources)
  • Naxos Music Library (database of recordings of mainly classical music)
  • North American Women's Letters and Diaries (1000s of letters and diary entries from the Colonial period to 1950)
  • Roper Center IPoll Databank (polling data)
  • US Congressional Serial Set (legislative documents from 1817 to 1980)
  • Women Writers Online (includes speeches and poetry of noted historical women writers)

Archival Materials

The Archives and Special Collections Department within Snell Library is largely comprised of primary source materials, much of it related to Northeastern University or to Boston area organizations. Visit the department's website or in person (92 Snell Library) to explore what primary source collections are available.

Websites

There are many free websites devoted to or containing significant collections of primary source materials. The library links to some of the more comprehensive and important of these websites through the library's subject guides. The arts and history subject guides have particularly strong primary source collections. The following are just a few recommended websites for primary source materials: