LibGuides: Resources for HIST 480: Senior Thesis: Primary Sources

Because each senior thesis is so different, this page offers only a few starting places to search for primary sources. Rather than sharing direct links to digitized primary sources on every historical topic imaginable, the focus is on tips and tricks for your own internet searches. If you would like a personalized round-up of a handful of primary source collections relevant to your topic, your librarian is available to provide that upon request. Just email reference@puc.edu.

A Selection of Primary Sources Online

This is a brief list of digital collections made available by national libraries, primarily in English speaking countries. Obviously, there is much, much more available online. Use this as inspiration or a starting place, or jump right down to the bottom of this page for my tips to find digital collections for yourself.

British Library Digital Archives & Manuscripts
Use this website to view digitised copies of manuscripts and archives in the British Library’s collections, with descriptions of their contents.
British Library Digital Collections
Use this website to access collections, often curated by subject, digitized by the British Library.
Caribbean Digital Library
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
The LOC digital collections can be searched by keyword or browsed by topic. A vast variety of material formats area available here.
National Library of Australia
Trove is a collaboration between the National Library of Australia and hundreds of Partner organizations around Australia.
National Library of New Zealand
Access magazines, journals, newspapers, letters, diaries, and Parliamentary papers from New Zealand's National Library.
National Library of Scotland
Access documents, photographs, maps, moving images, and more from the National Library of Scotland.
Vatican Digital Library
DigiVatLib is a digital library service. It provides free access to the Vatican Library’s digitized collections: manuscripts, incunabula, archival materials and inventories as well as graphic materials, coins and medals, printed materials (special projects).

Tips for Finding More Primary Sources

I am about to reveal my secrets to you. This is my magic Google move that finds collections of primary sources that have been digitized and made available freely online.

I pick some broad keywords that seem central to my topic. For the sake of this example, I will chose "Weimar Republic."
I combine those keywords with one of the following additional keywords:
- archives
- museum
- collection
- digitized
- primary sources
- Please note that each of these keywords will turn up different kinds of results. Many are useful, but in different ways. For example, "archives" often gets the best results in terms of digitized documents, whereas "primary sources" will usually turn up guides just like this one made by other librarians that contain round ups of trustworthy links I can check out.
I search Google with my keywords. I've tried other search engines like DuckDuckGo and they do not work as well for this purpose.
I assess my search results. Even with these good keywords, I still need to click into the links that turn up and check the "about" section to see who is providing these primary sources. Do I trust them? Do they have an agenda? Using your good judgement gained from years of research, you should have a feel for which results are credible. If you hit a wall at any point, a librarian is always more than happy to help (email reference@puc.edu or chat from the homepage at library.puc.edu).

For visual learners, here is the process I just described.

1. I choose broad keywords.

2. I add another keyword like "archives."

3. I search Google and begin to assess my results.

4. I continue to assess my results, selecting a link to study further. I choose the third link here, because I see that the URL ends with byu.edu, which means it is a page hosted by Brigham Young University. Although universities can have agendas and biases, they are also known for academic freedom and generally unbiased research, so if this page looks alright once I open it, I can probably trust it. As you can see from the screenshot below, this page is a roundup of links to digital collections that BYU recommends to its students. I will click the first one to see if it contains a trustworthy online collection worth browsing.

5. The first link here belongs to a library and archive dedicated to the history of German-speaking Jews. I know this because I visited the About page. I trust that this repository will share digital collections that have reliable and correct metadata (descriptions of the documents, photographs, etc.). I am willing to search this source with more targeted keywords to see if I can find primary sources relevant to my project.