The library catalog is a good place to start when searching for primary source materials such as correspondence, diaries, memoires, records, and other types of documents, either held in the library's Special Collections and Archives division, reprinted as books, or microform or digital surragates of the original.
Monographs written at the time of the event can make useful primary source material.
- Diaries and personal narratives apply to published memoirs
- Correspondence and interviews refer to collections of sources
- None of these terms necessarily means that the source was published specifically as a primary source, though they all can be used as such.
- Sources, applies to collections of materials, of whatever nature, that have been compiled specifically as anthologies of primary source materials.
- These could include collections of correspondence, articles, excerpts from longer publications, or anything else that might be useful for study of the subject.
- Archives and manuscripts are often used to designate collections of materials held in original manuscript format by the library.
- Document*, truncated here to search for any word beginning with “document,” does not necessarily appear in LCSH. It is useful as a keyword, however, since compilations of primary source material, published as such, often have titles that include the terms “documents” or “documentary.”
