What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the truth of what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied. A primary source (also called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions are used in library science, and other areas of scholarship. In journalism, a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources, though the distinction is not a sharp one.
Guide to International Collections
Archives - Getting Started
Historical Databases
An advert for P.T. Barnum's "Feejee Mermaid" in 1842 or thereabout. Author: P. T. Barnum or an employee, Source: Newspaper advert commons.wikimedia.org/
- RISM: Music Manuscripts after 1600
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The database, also known as Repertoire International des Sources Musicales, documents the world's musical sources of manuscripts or printed music, works on music theory, and libretti held in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools, and private collections. It includes more than 620,000 manuscript records by over 22,500 composers found in over 800 libraries and archives in 32 countries around the globe. - Eighteenth Century Collection Online
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ECCO contains digitized versions of the 180,000 books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed between 1701 and 1800 that are cataloged in the English Short-title Catalogue (ESTC). The majority of the works are in English with several thousand in French or Latin, and smaller numbers in Ancient Greek, German, Italian, Scots Gaelic, Spanish and Welsh, and other languages. Use the Advanced Search option to limit results by language and/or collection categories such as fine arts, history and geography, law, literature and language, medicine, science, and technology, religion and philosophy, social sciences, general reference, or a combination of subjects. Illustrated works may be searched by cartoon, map, music, portrait, etc. - Early English Books Online
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Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. EEBO includes over 146,000 titles published in English and more than 30 other languages from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the ages of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War. Transcriptions are available for approximately 50% of the texts.
NYC Archives and Special Collections
- American Memory: Historical Collections from the Library of Congress
- Brooklyn Historical Society: Archives, Manuscripts and Special Collections
- Columbia University Archival Collections Portal
- Manuscript and Archives Division, New York Public Library
- New York Historical Society: Library Collections
- NYU Special Collections and Archives
- Shubert Archive (Flash site- make sure you've installed latest Flash plugin)
- Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Billy Rose Theatre Division, NYPL
TITLE: [Scene from Othello with Paul Robeson as Othello and Uta Hagen as Desdemona, Theatre Guild Production, Broadway, 1943-44]
SOURCE: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540
The Billy Rose Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. This image is a work of an employee of the United States Farm Security Administration or Office of War Information domestic photographic units, created during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
- Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsThe Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. Encompassing dramatic performance in all its diversity, the division is an indispensable resource for artists, writers, researchers, scholars, students, and the general public. Through conservation and documentation efforts, it preserves and promotes the theatre, playing a dynamic role in the national and international theatrical communities.