Overview
Archives! Primary Sources! Special Collections! Oh My!
Primary source information is original material, such as a first-hand account of an event or a work of literature or art, that has not been interpreted by anyone other than its creator. Common types of primary sources are diaries, letters, autobiographies, oral history interviews, speeches, organizational records, poetry, drama, sheet music, government documents, maps, artifacts, films, video, sound recordings, photographs, artwork, and natural specimens.
At the University of Georgia Libraries, there are several locations for primary source materials:
- The general collections of Main and Science include: government documents in a variety of formats; letters, diaries, photographs, autobiographies collected in books and journals; and maps housed individually at the map library and in bound volumes, typically called atlases. Learn how to find these primary sources in GIL.
- The Digital Library of Georgia includes online collections of letters, diaries, political cartoons, photographs, books, newspapers, and more.
- There are three special collections archives in the Main Library:
- Each of these archives has special guidelines for using its collections. Visit their respective web pages to find out more about policies, procedures, and scope of collections. Contacting these archives is the best way to find out about the primary sources they have, but you can also find information about their primary sources by searching in GIL. Learn how to find these primary sources in GIL.
-
The Georgia Museum of Art has collections of artwork.
-
The Georgia Museum of Natural History has collections of natural specimens and artifacts.
Use the menu on the left for more information about finding and using primary source materials.
Last update: October 18, 2004
Comments to:
web editor
Copyright © University of Georgia. All rights reserved
URL=http://www.libs.uga.edu/researchcentral/choosing/primary/index.html
