Given the great variety of discovery tools for primary sources, it is probably unsurprising that there is no single, one-size-fits all strategy for searching for primary sources. The search strategies you use should be tailored to your research topic and to particular discovery tools.
Undertaking research with primary sources can be a daunting task. Having a plan before you begin will help you stay organized as you research your topic. A few tips to keep in mind as you begin your research:
Keep an open mind as you undertake your research. You may find new terms or keywords to search that you had not thought of. Some of the tips below will help you in your work locating primary sources.
Searching in catalogs and databases can be similar to searching in Google, but there are important differences in how you phrase searches. You can search by a simply stated topic, like “Jim Crow laws.” You can’t search by a sentence or phrase as you can in Google, like “Important court cases about the Jim Crow laws.”
In your search for primary sources you may question why some material is harder to find than other material. It is important to understand that archival and historical collections are social constructions that represent the context of their creation. Social, political, and economic forces shape the creation of primary and secondary sources at any particular historical moment. Therefore minority voices and the lives of the less powerful are not always well represented in library and archival collections.
Consider the who, what, where, when, and how of collection creation. You may find that the perspectives you are seeking are difficult to uncover. Be creative in your searching, and you may discover those perspectives in unexpected primary sources found in unusual locations. Consult librarians, archivists, historians, and subject specialists for additional tips on hunting down hard-to-find primary sources.
The type of search researchers often perform are basic keyword searches, with one word or a few words. This can cast a wide net, but the flip side is that it will often bring back irrelevant items. This can also be complicated by how the system searches the words you put in. Some systems, like Orbis, will automatically look for matches that have all the words present. Others, like Aviary, will automatically look for matches that have at least one or more of the words present. In cases where you use more than one word, using Booleans will be more effective.
A Boolean search uses the operators AND, NOT, and OR to filter results. Understanding how to use these operators can help you quickly narrow a search without having to sift through pages and pages of results for a single keyword search. If you are using a phrase as a keyword, you must enclose it in quotation marks, otherwise the search will treat each word as an individual keyword to search. Boolean operators function as follows:
AND: Searches for both of these keywords in the same result
OR: Searches for one or the other of these keywords, but not both in the same result
NOT: Searches for this keyword but not that keyword
Subject heading searches often return more comprehensive results than keyword searches. The Library of Congress creates subject headings that most libraries borrow, but they might not obviously come to mind. One way to find out the subject heading for a particular topic is to look for a trusted source in the library catalog and examine the record to find the subject headings.
For example, the subject term for the Vietnam War includes the dates: Vietnam War, 1961-1975. To find relevant subject headings, a researcher should run a keyword search to find a trusted source in the catalog, then look at the subject headings listed at the bottom of the record.
You can use the same basic search strategies you use in catalog searches to search within databases.
Additionally, in many primary source databases, you will have the opportunity to search the full text of documents. Think about the language that would have been used during that time period and in that cultural context, and search for relevant words, names, or phrases.
One good way to discover primary sources relevant to your research question or topic is to check the citations and bibliographies in books, articles, and dissertations related to your project. You can search for all of these sources in Quicksearch. Whether citations appear as endnotes or footnotes, they can be very helpful in leading you to primary sources found in archives, as publications, on microfilm, and online.
Bibliographies in books and dissertations often separate out lists of the primary or archival sources consulted, and if you are lucky, you might find a bibliographic essay at the end of a book or dissertation that not only identifies primary source materials but also describes the type and quality of information they contain.
Don’t be discouraged if you do not immediately find relevant sources and materials, or if you are having trouble narrowing results. Think about how you are searching and the keywords you are using. Use filters and facets to narrow down searches. Remember, research takes time and patience!
If you have questions or need help with any aspect of searching collections, librarians are here to help.
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