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HIST 5237 & HUMN 5236: Nazi Cinema and the Third Reich: Primary Sources & Other Websites

What is a Primary Source?

Primary sources are "fundamental, authoritative documents relating to a subject, ...e.g., original records, contemporary documents, etc." (Young, Heartsill, ed. The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science. Chicago: American Library Association, 1983, p.176). Primary source documents are first-hand accounts by a direct participant or observer and may include letters, diaries, interviews, photographs, films, maps, government documents, and more.

For the arts, history, and humanities, original primary source documents usually are housed in museums, archives, restricted library collections, and government offices. Reproductions of primary source documents often can be found in online digital collections, microform collections, books, and other secondary works.

For the sciences, primary sources usually refer to original accounts of a research study. Find a fuller explanation in the SUNY Albany resource below.

Selected Primary Source Databases and Collections

Additional primary source collections can be found on relevant subject guides and webpages, including History and Women's Studies.

Websites

World War I: Primary Sources

World War I: Primary Source Directories

World War II: Primary Sources

Finding Film Reviews

Reviews can be an important primary source for films; they are often published on the day of a film's release.  You can find film reviews in the following resources:

Finding Primary Sources from Other Libraries

You can use the WorldCat database to search the catalogs of libraries throughout the United States.

The following are Library of Congress subject headings for primary source documents.  Search for these as "subject" in WorldCat, combined with your other search terms as "keyword":

sources  

interviews

documents

diaries

correspondence

personal narratives

archives

biography

manuscripts

 

Once you have identified a title that you think could be useful to you, feel free to make a request for it through Interlibrary Loan.

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