Finding Sources
This page lists a variety of kinds of sources and offers links to resources for exploring them. Outline of Primary Sources for History offer general methods for finding primary sources and lists numerous types of primary sources with HOLLIS search examples and links to research guides.
- Searching in HOLLIS
- Center for Research Libraries
- Digital Libraries
- Bibliographies
- Archives
- Films/Videos
- Government Documents
- Images
- International Organizations
- Legal Sources
- Literature
- Maps and Gazetteers
- Newspapers
- Personal Accounts
- Statistics
To find books, periodicals, manuscripts, videos, etc., on a topic in HOLLIS, put in likely keywords and choose Library Catalog. Look at pertinent records and find the terms under Subject. For example, searching "Pan Asian*" (the * gives you Pan Asian, Pan Asianism) yields
Pan-Asian integration : linking East and South Asia, ed. by Joseph Francois, Pradumna B. Rana and Ganeshan Wignaraja. Houndmills, Basingstoke; New. York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 576 p.
Subjects
East Asia -- Foreign economic relations -- South Asia
South Asia -- Foreign economic relations -- East Asia
Asia -- Economic integration
HOLLIS Record
Note that the proper terms are Asia -- Economic integration and Regionalism. Under Refine my results: Subject on the right of the results list there are more main terms (Regionalism, Globalization) to try, but not the terms after the dashes ( -- Foreign economic relations; -- Economic integration) which are called subdivisions. NOTE: If you hit one of the terms in this Subject list, HOLLIS will find records with the term, say Regionalism, only on records in the set originally formed by searching "Pan-Asian*" .
Redo your search using the terms that HOLLIS uses ("Foreign relations". Also, go to Starts with.../Browse (top black band) and put in, say, India foreign relations, adjusting to Browse by Subject. This is very useful in breaking down a large subject and in giving you more subdivisions, which can be applied to other Subject terms, to search. Thus:
- India Foreign relations Philosophy (on the conceptual foundation of Indian foreign policy)
Whenever you have a reference to a useful book, look it up in HOLLIS and see what the Subject terms are.
Any pertinent book published during your era may be a primary source, but certain kinds of primary sources, including originally unpublished sources such as letters and diaries published later, have particular terms attached to their Subject terms in a HOLLIS record. Change Any field to Subject for cleanest results.
- --Archives
- --Correspondence
- --Description and travel
- --Diaries
- --Manuscripts
- --Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
- --Personal narratives (refers to accounts of wars and diseases only)
- --Sources (usually refers to collections of published primary sources)
Example:
"India history partition 1947"
AND
Archives OR Correspondence OR Diaries OR Manuscripts OR Sources OR Narratives (as Subject)
Example:
Women and empire, 1750-1939: primary sources on gender and Anglo-imperialism, ed. by Susan K. Martin et al. Abingdon, UK ; New York: Routledge ; Tokyo : Synapse Editions, 2009. 5 v.
HOLLIS Record
Detailed contents
When you find a pertinent book, go to Starts With.../Browse and put in the call number, adjusting the menu to Library of Congress (Wid-LC) or Other. This shows you other books on the same subject, even though they may be in storage or checked out.
Translations
In HOLLIS Advanced Search do searches of the form:
- Limit to English
- Translat* yields both translated and translation
- This search is not exhaustive. Where you have a particular Arabic work, do a Title exact phrase search, limiting to English
Most material published in a country
You can do a HOLLIS search for material published in a particular country. In HOLLIS Advanced Search adjust Any Field to Code: MARC place of pub and enter ii (for India)
These searches can be limited by language, dates, format, etc. In the usual way
Thus: Subject (exact phrase) economic policy, Code MARC place of pub: ii, limited to English and 1947-1980
See the Library Research Guide for History and the HOLLIS Help guide for more information on searching HOLLIS.
The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) in Chicago has vast holdings of international material, print, microfilm, and online. Physical material is obtainable via Interlibrary Loan. See the CRL/Internet Archive page of this guide
Finding Primary Sources Online: Search Methods
List by region/country
Hathitrust is a huge general digital library similar to, and partly overlapping in content with, Google Books and Internet Archive but with some special features. You can do a full text search over the whole collection of millions of books and journals and then effectively refine the results Use Full Text Advanced Search. You can search for a keyword in, say, travel books (Subject term: "Description and travel") on a certain country for a specified time period.
Example: Advanced Full Text Search:
Full text + All fields: Kashmir
AND
Subject exact phrase: Foreign relations
After: 1947. Limit results to Place of publication: India
Internet Archive contains much global material, especially on South Asia and the UK. See the CRL/Internet Archive page of this guide
You can also d a full text search limited to an author, title or subject in Internet Archive. Detailed instructions and more on HathiTrust and Internet Archive.
The Making of the Modern World offers full text searching of works on economics and business published from 1450-1914 from the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at the Baker Library, Harvard Business School and the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library. Includes material on commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, public health, trade and transport. A great deal of more recently acquired material in the Kress Collection is not included in The Making of the Modern World
Many more are listed in the Library Research Guide for History and the Library Research Guide for Foreign Relations.
Sometimes you can find a bibliography, a publication that lists other publications, on your subject. Search in HOLLIS with the word Bibliography as a Subject keyword search (It needs to be Subject keyword, NOT Keywords anywhere) : "Indian Ocean" commerce AND Bibliography. You can use Keywords anywhere for your other keywords in Advanced search. Browsing a bibliography offers a different experience from database searching with keywords.
See the Library Research Guide for History: Archives and Manuscripts. Especially All Countries and European
To find films in HOLLIS, search your topic keywords, then on the right side of the results screen, look at Resource Type and choose video/film.
To find books about films about your topic, search Topic keywords AND "in motion pictures"
British Pathé offers numerous British newsreels and documentaries
Other sources for film and video are listed in the Library Research Guide for History, which also has pages for television and radio.
Government documents are publications intended to be released to the public.
There is a very large collection of foreign government documents on Lamont Level D. This collection is especially rich in statistical sources and legislative debates and reports. .Documents are largely cataloged in the Old Widener system. More recent, late 20th century and 21st century, documents are often cataloged in the Doc-LC system. Serial publications (yearbooks, annual publications of legislative debates, etc.) which began in the Old Widener system remain in the Old Widener system. There are also many foreign government documents in Widener and in the Law School Library.
Material from Lamont Level D must be paged. Instructions: HOW CAN I ACCESS GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS AND MICROFORMS FROM LAMONT LEVEL D?
For instructions on searching for foreign government documents in HOLLIS, see the Library Research Guide for History: Foreign Government & International Organization Documents
Online Sources
LLMC Digital: Go to Online Services, then Browse Collections. A rich source of legislative and judicial documents
US State Department records have much information on other countries. See the Library Research Guide for Foreign Relations
Related guides
- Library Research Guide for British Colonial and Foreign Relations Sources
- Guide to French Legislative Documents
- French foreign relations documents (much of this guide is in an early stage of development)
Lists of Published/Digitized National Foreign Relations Series
- Documents diplomatiques étrangers
- Guia de las Colecciones Publicadas de Documentos Diplomáticos
- Editions of Diplomatic Documents is a list of FRUS-type series for many countries worldwide
ARTstor offers innumerable images from art but also from a variety of humanities and social science fields. Other. sources for images are listed in the Library Research Guide for History.
Royal Geographical Society Picture Library
Combining your topical words with the phrase "Pictorial Works" in HOLLIS yields books that are largely composed of pictures.
List, with sources, of international organizations
List of archival repositories: Archives of International Organizations
See Research Guide for History 97g: "What is Legal History?" for more sources
In HOLLIS the following terms are found on literary works and works of literary scholarship.
India -- Politics and government -- 1947- -- Fiction (or Drama, or Poetry) refers to literary works
Bangladesh -- In literature refers to literary scholarship.
The Harvard Map Collection contains one of the world’s finest collections of maps. Although their atlases are in HOLLIS, most of their individual maps are not. To get there, enter Lamont, go down to Level B, walk down the corridor to the West end (where the now closed entrance is), turn right, and walk down the corridor past the Theodore Roosevelt exhibit.
There are many thematic maps showing distribution of health, ethnicity, economic conditions and many other features. Speak to the Map Collection librarians about your interests.
A gazetteer is an alphabetical place name list with information on former names, physical features, social statistics, population, etc., depending on the particular gazetteer. Often a very rich resource.
Harvard Map Collection Digital Maps
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes Especially Foreign Newspaper Sources and Additional Sources for Digitized Newspapers
Many diaries, letters and other personal writings are available full text online.
Foreign Affairs Oral History Program (Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training)
British Diplomatic Oral History Programme
Primary sources in European diplomacy, 1914-1945: a bibliography of published memoirs and diaries, by Frederic M. Messick. NY: Greenwood Press, 1987, 221 p.
Widener | WID-LC | D443.Z99 M47 x, 1987 (In-Library Use only)
Autobiographies usually bear the Subject term Biography, and so are not distinguished from biographies. The search Autobiographies OR Autobiography yields many autobiographies, but by no means all.
In Hathitrust in Full Text Advanced Search. You can search for a keyword in works by a specified author.
For personal accounts and oral histories of immigrants and particular ethnic groups, se the Library Research Guide for Ethnicity, Migration, Rights.
International historical statistics, 1750-2010. Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 1 online resource (3 v.).
Print version (1750-2005) in Loker Reading Room, Widener 2nd floor, East end): RR 3603.32
Bibliography of official statistical yearbooks and bulletins, by Gloria Westfall. Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1986, 247 p.
Documents (Lamont) Ref HA155.Z99 W47 1986x
Internet Archive Full Text
Several yearbook series offer statistical and other information on countries. These are listed in the Library Research Guide for History.
Find descriptions of countries by travelers in HOLLIS by searching Advanced Search for the subject term “Description and Travel” AND the relevant geographical terms: Venezuela
You can search for a keyword in travel books (Subject term: "Description and travel") on a certain country for a specified time period in Hathitrust Advanced Full Text Search by putting your keywords in the first search box and, in the second, as Title phrase, a specific book, or, as Subject: Nigeria "Description and travel". Example