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 scholars, they provide the resources necessary for scholarly research.
University of Maryland Libraries own many primary materials in all kinds of formats, including books, microforms and electronic collections. You can find many primary sources in our general collections, i.e. in our open stacks. In addition, the University of Maryland houses rich Special Collections, which include archival and manuscript collections, government documents, digital collections, maps, and rare books. Many of these materials pertain to Jewish and Israel studies. We encourage you to look for all of these resources in the Catalog (see the box below on this page for some tips on how to search).
There are many primary sources in our regular collections. Primary sources do not have to be archival materials. They can be reprints from archival collections, published diaries or memoirs of those who witnessed or participated in the events, old microformed newspapers and periodicals, published speeches, political writings of politicians, and the list goes on. To identify primary sources in the Catalog, add to your search words terms such as "archival resources," "archives," "sources," "manuscripts," "correspondence," "diaries," "personal narratives," "memoirs," "letters," etc. Another way is to find writings by famous and not so famous people, like for example, important political, cultural, or religious leaders.
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Another strategy is to use the advanced search from the yellow tool bar. Specify years of your research interest to limit your search to materials contemporary with the event or phenomenon you are interested in. In more specific searches, it often helps to combine the dates search with subject searching.
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Finally, University of Maryland Libraries own huge microform collections, many of which would be considered primary sources. Again in the advanced search, specify your topic and limit it by format "microform." By the way, this method could be used in finding periodicals, non-print materials, reference sources, and other types of formats.
Example:
Of course, you can mix and match the above approaches as you see fit.
