What is a Primary Source?
What is a primary source? A primary source is a document, image, or artifact that provide first hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a historical event and/or topic. Some examples would be letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspaper, speeches, government documents, photographs, data, artifacts/objects, interviews, audio, and video recordings.
You can find these primary sources online and in print. The rest of the tabs on this guide will mostly be for sources available online, but the items on this page will focus on print items.
Items Among Our Collection
A Spy in the Archives by Call Number: DK38.7.F58 A3 2015ISBN: 9781784532956Publication Date: 2015-05-30Sheila Fitzpatrick provides a unique insight into everyday life in Soviet Moscow. Full of drama and colourful characters, her remarkable memoir highlights the dangers and drudgery faced by Westerners living under communism.
The Origins of the Cold War by Call Number: D839.3 .O74 1993ISBN: 1878379275Publication Date: 1993Recently discovered in the Soviet archives, the Novikov telegram parallels the famous "Long Telegram" of U.S. diplomat George Kennan. Novikov's telegram is presented alongside Kennan's cable and a similar telegram by British diplomat Frank Roberts.
The Cold War : a history in documents and eyewitness accounts by Call Number: D839.3 .C58 2004ISBN: 9780199272808Publication Date: 2004This book contains a selection of official and unofficial documents which provide a truly multi-faceted account of the entire Cold War era. It examines the entirety of the Cold War era, presenting documents from the end of World War II right up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Finding Print Primary Sources
Primary sources can also be found in published books. You can use the Tufts Catalog to search for them or in Libraries Worldwide. Using subject headings can help you find these primary sources:
- Sources
- Description and travel
- Personal narratives
- Correspondence
The Library of Congress assigns subject headings to every book published in the US. These subject headings can be helpful in finding items related to your topic. If you'd like to use subject headings for your search, click on Advanced Search on our Tufts Catalog and some search boxes will appear. On the left-hand side, instead of Any Field, click that to change to Subject. Once you have made that change, you can do a search using subject headings. For example, you can do the following searches:
- Cold War--Description and Travel
- Cold War--Personal Narratives
- Cold War -- Sources
- Cold War (1945-1989)--Description and Travel
When you click on a book that seems of interest for your research, you can see other subject headings that correspond to that topic, and you can click on them and will take you to other items that have the same subject heading.
Tips for Evaluating Primary Sources
When evaluating primary or secondary sources, ask the following questions:
- How does the author know these details (names, dates, times)? Was the author present at the event or soon on the scene?
- Where does this information come from - personal experience, eyewitness accounts, or reports written by others?
- Are the author's conclusions based on a single piece of evidence, or have many sources been taken into account (e.g., diary entries, along with third-party eyewitness accounts, impressions of contemporaries, newspaper accounts)?
- New York University | Bobst Library: Guidelines for Evaluating Primary DocumentsThere is also a section for evaluating sources you find on the Web.
- Primary Sources on the Web: Finding, Evaluating, UsingThis brief guide is designed to help students and researchers find and evaluate primary sources available online.