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Library FAQ

This resource is intended to help you navigate A&M-SA's library resources and your research process.

I Am Looking for Primary Sources

A primary source is an item that was created during the period being studied and documents in some way what is being studied.

Examples of primary sources include:

  • Newspaper accounts
  • Letters, Diaries, and Scrapbooks
  • Government documents (research data, statistics, congressional transcripts, laws)
  • Personal accounts, Autobiographies, Memoirs
  • Images and Museum Artifacts
  • Speeches
  • Data from scientific experiments
  • Oral histories

If you are looking for historical primary sources, here are two strategies:

  1.  Search in Library Databases and Research Guides:
  1. Search the Library Search box If you are looking for primary sources on a certain topic, use the Advanced Search with subjects.
  • On the first line, leave the menu on Any, enter keyword(s) that describe your topic.
  • On the second line, change the drop-down menu to Subject and select one of the subject headings that describes primary sources. When you use multiple subject headings, put an OR between them.
  • Under Show Content Type, select what type of sources you are looking for: manuscripts, audio, pamphlet, etc.
  • Make sure you check the box Include results from outside your library's collection, so you will get results that are outside of the A&M-SA Library's collection as well.

For example, you could search for medieval as a keyword and sources OR documents OR personal narratives as subject headings.

  • To find any kind of primary source - Sources OR documents (medieval sources, Civil War documents, papal sources);
  • Personal accounts, autobiographies, or memoirs - Personal narratives OR Autobiography OR memoir (Pearl Harbor personal narratives, Battle of the Bulge memoir, autobiography World War II);
  • Letters - Correspondence OR letters (Civil War correspondence, French Revolution letters);
  • Diaries - Diary (Civil War diary, woman diary France);
  • Oral history - Interview OR oral history OR speeches (Cold War interview, Japanese internment oral history, Malcolm X speeches);
  • Pamphlet - Pamphlet (pamphlet chastity, rights of women pamphlet);
  • Photographs or artwork - Pictorial works (Chicago pictorial works, World's Fair pictorial works).