Primary Sources Research Guide

1. Do a search in Google (or the search engine of your choice)

2. Combine keywords that describe your topic with keywords to retrieve primary sources or digital collections from archives and museums

For example

• "Vietnam veterans" oral histories  
• "African American" women nurses "digital collection"
• 17th century recipes archives
• "Chinese immigration" letters

Common primary source keywords include:

• "primary sources"
• sources
• documents
• texts
• manuscripts
• "digital collections"

You can also try keywords for kinds of primary sources:

• "oral histories"
• "personal narratives"
• letters
• correspondence
• interviews
• diaries

Remember to evaluate the sites you find -- even a quick check to see if a site is produced by an archives, museum, governmental agency, or educational institution can help you determine whether this is a legitimate, trustworthy source for information. The best sites for primary sources will provide you with the information you need to cite your sources. 

Other research guides

To see if a librarian has already identified digital primary sources related to your topic, do an Internet search for a term or phrase related to your research plus the phrase "research guide" or LibGuide.

• For example: Search for history of medicine "research guide".

Amherst College Digital Collections

Collections from other institutions

Collections organized by era

Collections organized around slavery and abolition

Collections organized around social identities & social histories

Collections organized by geographic region

Collections organized around political histories and political activism

These databases have collections of newspapers published generally pre-1990, often digitized from print or microfilm. They are searchable, but be aware that the results won't be as accurate as born-digital newspapers.

 Use these to find freely-available collections of primary sources.