What is a primary source? A primary source is one that is contemporary to the events you are studying. Some examples include letters, diaries, photographs, maps, newspapers, magazine articles, or advertisements. You can find primary sources in books, articles and web sites.

Finding Primary Sources
OASys:

Try keyword searches on your topic and include phrases such as:

Sample keyword searches:
civil war personal narratives
feminism sources
chile documents
emily dickinson letters of

Sample compilations of reprinted primary source materials in our collection: 

Documents of American History – Reference, E173 .D59 1988.
Speeches of the American Presidents – Reference, J81 .C88 1988
Women’s lives in Medieval Europe: A sourcebook – Tier 2, HQ1143 .W65 1993
Chinese Civilization and Society: A sourcebook – First Floor, old, DS721 .C517 

Be sure to click the LINK+ icon in the top right corner to search the other libraries in our consortium.

The most important thing to remember when researching is: don’t give up! If you do not find exactly what you are looking for on the first attempt, try again!  You may need to try several combinations of keywords or subject headings in order to find the ones that most accurately describe what you are searching for.

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Finding Primary Sources 
Newspapers, Journals and Magazines

Articles in newspapers, journals, or magazines written at the same time as the events you are researching can be used as primary sources, as can the advertisements in those publications.

Use the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature to find articles in popular American general interest magazines (some going back to the late 1800's) such as Time, Reader's Digest, Commonweal, etc. These can contain good primary source material for certain topics in American History.

ProQuest Online Information Service indexes a variety of popular magazines, academic journals and newspapers. Although coverage varies, some parts of ProQuest go back to the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers is a separate database that provides full-text access to the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times dating back to their first issues (1851 and 1881, respectively).  Go to the ProQuest advanced search page, and under “multiple databases,” choose either the Historical Los Angeles Times or the Historical New York Times.

Microform
The library has back issues of many periodicals, such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times, available on microform, which can be viewed and printed on our microform machines.  

Bibliographies
A good way to find primary sources is by using secondary sources.  Check the bibliographies of books and journal articles for citations, or read the footnotes.  The author may have used a primary source that will also be useful to you. 

Finding Primary Sources
Oxy Library Special Collections

Located on third floor of the library, the Special Collections Department houses over 100,000 items, including rare books, manuscripts, artwork, the archives of the College, and collections of documents on a wide range of topics.  Special Collections contains primary source materials related to nearly every major.  Many of the items can be found using OASys, but many others remain uncatalogued.  Browse the Special Collections website, visit the reading room, or contact a Special Collections staff member to determine if Oxy's Special Collections contains primary sources that could be useful to your research.

Contact:
Dale Stieber, Special Collections Librarian: dstieber@oxy.edu, x2852
Jean Paule, College Archivist: jpaule@oxy.edu x1413  

Special Collections is open weekdays from 11:00am - 4:00pm.

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Finding Secondary Sources
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Use OASys.  Do an advanced keyword search and limit the location to reference stacks.  Or, do a keyword search for “encyclopedia of…” or “dictionary of…” followed by your topic.  

Sample searches:
latin america and limit to Location: Ref Stacks
encyclopedia of civil war
dictionary of china

Or, consult the Guide to Reference Books (Ref Desk, Z1035 .W79).

Sample reference works:
Dictionary of American History   (Ref E174 .D52 2003)
Encyclopedia of Religion and War (Ref BL80.3 .E53 2004)
Dictionary of the Middle Ages   (Ref D114 .D5 1982)
Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust   (Ref D804.25 .F57 1999)
Encyclopedia of World Environmental History   (Ref GF10 .E63 2004)
Encyclopedia of Mexico   (Ref F1210 .E63 1997 )
Encyclopedia of Sculpture  (Ref NB198 .E53 2004) 
Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies   (Ref GN495.6 .C37 2003)

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Finding Secondary Sources 
Books

In OASys, start with a keyword search, unless you know the exact title or author of the work you want.  When you find a book that interests you, check the hyperlinked Library of Congress subject headings at the bottom of the OASys record to see if there is one that matches your topic.  If so, click on it and it will take you to a list of all the books in the Oxy library that are categorized under that subject heading.  Be sure to click the LINK+ icon to see what books are available from other libraries under that subject heading. 

Sample Search:
keyword: peasants europe
subject heading: Peasantry -- England -- History

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Finding Secondary Sources           
Articles

To find databases that index history journals, look under “DATABASES,” then “BY TOPIC,” and choose “HISTORY.”  Or, click here.

Suggested databases: 
America: History & Life (EBSCO)   
American history. Find citations to and occasional full-text links for articles and books.

Historical Abstracts (EBSCO)  
Index to books, articles, and other materials in world history from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada); 

Iter Gateway  
Middle Ages and Renaissance studies. Find citations to books, articles, essays, scholars, and a variety of specialized resources. Full text is available for a few journals and some unpublished letters.

PAIS Archive (FirstSearch)   
Find citations to international public policy information originally published and indexed between 1915 and 1976. See also PAIS International (FirstSearch)

Project Muse 
Full-text of over 40 scholarly journals in the humanities, the social sciences and mathematics from Johns Hopkins University press.

ProQuest Online Information Service
A common interface to databases marketed by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. Oxy's set of ProQuest databases includes ProQuest General Reference, ProQuest Religious Periodicals, National Newspapers, and ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Except for Historical Newspapers, these databases can be searched simultaneously. Together they form a convenient general article database offering ample links to complete online articles.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers 
Search the full text of the New York Times (1851 - 1999) and the Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1928 and growing). View results as page images.

JSTOR 
Full-text archive of high-impact academic journals in many disciplines. Included journals generally begin with full-text from the first issue up until 3-5 years ago. Full-text is not available through JSTOR for recent issues. You can browse journals by discipline, by title or search articles by keyword.

WilsonWeb
A search platform offering the Art, Business, Education, General Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Reader's Guide databases. OmniFile Full Text Mega incorporates the entire content from all of these except for the Art Database.

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Online Archive of California
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/
"The OAC brings together historical materials from a variety of California institutions, including museums, historical societies, and archives. Over 120,000 images; 50,000 pages of documents, letters, and oral histories; and 8,000 guides to collections are available."

Online Archive of the Japanese American Internment during WWII
http://departments.oxy.edu/digitalarch/web/index.htm
Prepared by the Occidental College Library Special Collections department, this online archive provides digital access to some of the letters and documents from the Oxy Library's Japanese-American Relocation Collection.

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