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War and Genocide in Europe, 1939-1945: Research Seminar

Course Number: HI615B

Subject: History

Where are the primary sources?

  1. Physical (one-of-a-kind)
    1. personal, archives and museums
  2. Surrogate (published)
    1. Analogue
      • books, microfiche, microfilm (and ebooks as discreet publications) 
    2. Digital 
      • commercial or not-for-profit databases

Surrogate primary sources have the potential to be translated and searchable.

Analogue primary sources

To search a library catalogue for primary sources, use some of these terms in addition to your search terms (e.g., ghetto AND holocaust):

  • "personal narratives," sources, letters, correspondence, speeches, interviews

Searching the following two catalogues should find the majority of available sources.

  • Omni - owned by academic libraries in Ontario (not UofT)
  • Worldcat - owned by academic libraries in the world (including UofT)

Request an item from another library (Interlibrary Loan)

Bonus! The Internet Archive may have a digitized copy of a print book.

Catalogue records do not consistently apply subject headings, so an additional approach is to mine bibliographies of secondary sources, including theses and dissertations. For example:

Riegel, J. E. M. (2021). Catastrophe and continuity: Musical life in the warsaw ghetto (Order No. 28548098). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Digital primary sources

Commercial

Laurier, UG, and UW have many commercial primary source collections, however none of them are helpful for the content of this course.

  • i.e., if you Google and come across any of these Gale products, we do not have access.

not-for-profit 

Ways to search google ("primary sources", interview)

A selective list of freely available digital primary source collections. Note that many of these collections include content in its original language; and that there are commentaries, essays, and other text that is secondary.

Citing primary sources

Also:

  • You can also emulate what you see in other publications.
  • 14.160: Citations taken from secondary sources

Page Owner: Greg Sennema

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