Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research.
By the Instruction & Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Service Association History Section in the American
Below are two excellent external websites for more information on finding primary sources.
Primary resources are everywhere...but that's what makes researching them difficult. There is so much and there is no single or comprehensive database or search engine where you can just do one search. Some primary sources are digitized and available online, some have been re-published in books or other sources, and many are housed in Archives all over the world that are only accessible in person. However, don't be daunted. Below are some links to lead you to lists of sources of primary materials. If you're having difficulty finding a primary source for your bibliography, please ask for help!
One way to identify books that are primary sources is to look for books written by people who were involved in the event or activity you are researching. When you look at secondary sources, write down the names of people and then look for them as authors.
In the NOBLE Libraries catalog and WorldCat, books that have been assigned subjects with the subheadings in the list below might be primary sources. However, don’t expect that a book that includes primary sources will always include one of these words or phrases in a subject heading. Also, these subheadings are not used in other databases.
--Diaries
--Correspondence
--Biography
--Sources
--Anecdotes
--Personal narratives
--Interviews
Examples:
Ambassadors -- United States -- Diaries
Hayes, Rutherford B., 1822-1893 -- Correspondence
Diplomats -- United States -- Biography
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 -- Sources
{Adapted from: Bowling Green State University Library, Research Methods and Historiography}