Finding Primary Sources

Sources can be found numerous classes of historical record.  This page lists a variety of such classes and offers links to resources for exploring them.

Searching in HOLLIS

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 epidemics surveillance yields

The politics of surveillance and response to disease outbreaks: the new frontier for states and non-state actors, ed. by Sara E. Davies and Jeremy R. Youde. Farnham, Surrey, UK England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015, 192 pages.
Subjects:
Public health surveillance -- International cooperation
Epidemics
World health
Med. subject:
Public Health Surveillance
Epidemics
Global Health
International Cooperation
HOLLIS Record

Note that there are two sets of Subject terms for medicine.

  • Library of Congress labeled: Subject
  • National Library of Medicine (called MeSH) labeled Med. subject

Under Refine my results: Subject on the right of the results list there are more main terms (Communicable diseases, Disease outbreaks, Emerging infectious diseases) to try. NOTE: If you hit one of the terms in this Subject list, HOLLIS will find records with the term, say  Emerging infectious diseases, only on records in the set originally formed by searching epidemics surveillance

Redo your search using the terms that HOLLIS uses.    Also, go to Starts with.../Browse (top black band) and put in Epidemics adjusting to Browse by Subject.  This is very useful in breaking down a large subject and in giving you more subdivisions (the words after the --), which can be applied to other Subject terms, to search.  Thus:

  • Epidemics -- Prevention
  • Influenza -- Prevention

Other HOLLIS Subject terms

  • Cholera
  • Communicable Disease Control
  • Communicable diseases
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Diseases
  • Epidemics
  • Epidemiology
  • Influenza
  • Medical care -- Algeria
  • Minorities -- Medical care
  • Minorities -- Health and hygiene
  • Public Health
  • Smallpox
  • Social medicine
  • Traditional medicine -- Cross-cultural studies
  • World health -- History
  • Med. subject
  • Cross-Cultural Comparison
  • Cultural Diversity
  • Global Health - trends

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
  • --Interviews
  • --Manuscripts
  • --Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
  • --Oral histories--Personal narratives (refers to accounts of wars and diseases only)
  • --Sources (usually refers to collect>ons of published primary sources)

Example:
Subject contains: Poliomyelitis
AND
Subject contains: Archives OR Correspondence OR Diaries OR Manuscripts OR Sources OR Narratives OR Interviews OR Oral

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.

You can limit to Show only: Online, BUT):

  • You can request Scan&Deliver for two chapters from a book.  Tables of contents are often included in HOLLIS records, in Google Books, Amazon Look Inside, or can be requested via Scan&Deliver
  • Journals and some book series are not linked from HOLLIS, so check HathiTrust directly.
  • Full text may be available outside of HOLLIS/HathiTrust.

See the Library Research Guide for History and the HOLLIS Help guide for more information on searching HOLLIS.

Anthropological Literature

Using the Anthropological Literature database: Medical Anthropology

Archival Records

To find Harvard archival collections, see the Library Research Guide for History: Archives and Manuscripts.

Bibliographies

Find bibliographies in HOLLIS by searching your keyword plus the word Bibliography (which must be limited to Subject).

Subject contains: "Communicable diseases" OR "Disease outbreaks"
AND
Subject contains: Brazil Bibliography

Cross-national study of health systems, concepts, methods, and data sources : a guide to information sources, Ray H. Elling. Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1980, 293 p.
HOLLIS Record

Anthropological and cross-cultural themes in mental health: an annotated bibliography, 1925-1974, by A. R. Favazza, and M. Oman.. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977, 386 p.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive Full Text
--By author with secondary author and subject indexes.
--Continued by Favazza, A. R. and A. D. Faheem. 1982. Themes in cultural psychiatry, an annotated bibliography, 1975-1980. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 194 p.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive Full Text

Diaries and Other Personal Writings

In the HOLLIS Library Catalog Advanced Search  several Subject terms refer to personal accounts.  Combine topical keywords with  the Subject words: Narratives, Diaries, Correspondence, Interviews, Oral history (or Oral histories)

Narratives is short for Personal narratives which refers to accounts of wars and of diseases.

In HOLLIS:

Subject contains: Epidemiologists
AND
Subject contains: sources OR narratives OR diaries OR correspondence OR interviews OR oral

Digital Libraries

HathiTrust Digital Library is a huge collection of digitized books and periodicals. Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata and subject terms. Most items pre-1925 will be full text viewable.  After 1925, a much smaller number will be full text viewable.  You can search within non-full text viewable works and obtain the pages numbers where your search terms occur.   Most US, and some state, government documents will be full text viewable.

Advanced Full Text Search

In the first (Full Text) Advanced Full Text Search field, you can put terms for a full text search.  Phrases and proper names work best (exact phrase).  If you search two or more separate keywords, when you search within particular volumes, those pages containing all the keywords will sort first.

In the second search field, you can limit your full text search by:

  • Title, searching the contents of a particular work, including periodical titles
  • Author, searching the works of a particular author, including names of organizations and government entities.
  • Subject, searching the Subject terms (same Subject terms as those used in HOLLIS) for a particular topic

You can then further refine the results using the left-hand Refine Results column by country of publication, language, date, etc.

Internet Archive offers full text for a variety of digitized books and periodicals.  Also includes archived web pages (Wayback Machine), as well as manuscripts (a few), digitized microfilm, films, audio files, TV News, and more.  Many recent books are full text viewable if you set up a free account. You can use a Google password.

Details on searching HathiTrust and Internet Archive

For digital libraries and guides to digital collections world wide see Finding Primary Sources Online (Library Research Guide for History): 

Document Collections

To find more collections of primary sources, search Sources as a Subject keyword. Sources usually refers to published collections of primary sources of several different types. 

China AND Influenza AND Sources  [Use caps for AND]

Since Sources is a common word, 'Limit to: Subject' eliminates many irrelevant results.

Contagion: historical views of diseases and epidemics (Harvard Library Open Collections Program)

National Library of Medicine Digital Collections: Cholera Online, 1817-1900

Global Health Chronicles offers documents on several diseases.

For digital libraries and guides to digital collections world wide see Finding Primary Sources Online (Library Research Guide for History): 

Films

Streaming Video @ Harvard

National Library of Medicine Digital Collections: Tropical Disease Motion Pictures

Government Documents

Government documents are publications intended to be released to the public. They include publications of national, state/province, and  local departments of public health. Guides are available:  U.S. (National)  --  U.S. (state/local) 

In HOLLIS Library Catalog Advanced Search, search, say, Nigeria as Author. This will yield, largely, Nigerian government publications.

Library Research Guide for History: Foreign Government & International Organization Documents

LLMC Digital
Go to Online Services, then Browse Collections.  A rich source of legislative and judicial documents

Many of the foreign government documents are in Lamont.  We have them for many countries.  The collection is especially rich in statistical publications.  There are legislative reports for many countries.  More information.

Library Research Guide for British Colonial and Foreign Relations Sources
Foreign Office publications online:
Colonial Office publications online:  Do a screen search for your country

Guide to French Legislative Documents
French foreign relations documents (much of this guide is in an early stage of development)

Magazines/Periodicals

Finding Articles in General and Popular Periodicals (North America and Western Europe)

Newspapers

For general newspaper coverage, see Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes.  Foreign Newspaper Sources

Oral Histories

See the Library Research Guide for History

Policy Literature

PolicyFile (1990-) offers public policy reports and studies published by think tanks, university research programs, research organizations including the OECD, IMF, World Bank, the Rand Corporation, and a number of federal agencies.

Policy Archive is a digital library of public policy research containing over 30,000 documents.

Think Tank Search - from the Kennedy School of Government, a customized Google search of documents produced by think tanks.

Google advanced search. You can limit by domain: .org

Statistics

International historical statistics, 1750-2010

Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) 

Global Health Observatory (WHO)

Global Burden of Disease (GBD)

Health Statistics (UC Davis Library guide)

A. D. Cliff, P. Haggett, and M. Smallman-Raynor's. Deciphering global epidemics: analytical approaches to the disease records of world cities, 1888-1912 (1998) has appendices which discuss international and national data sources and epidemiological agencies.
Internet Archive Full Text