Finding Sources

This page lists a variety of primary source types and offers links to resources for exploring them. We start with two general resources.

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 Negro* health yields:

The health and physique of the Negro American. Report of a social study made under the direction of Atlanta University; together with the proceedings of the eleventh Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems held at Atlanta University, on May the 29th, 1906, ed. by W. E. Burghardt Du Bois. Atlanta, Ga., Atlanta University Press, 1906, 112 p.
Subjects:
African Americans
African Americans -- Health and hygiene
Med. subject
Health Status
Black People
Black or African American
United States
HOLLIS Record

Under Refine my results: Subject on the right of the results list there are more main terms (Race relations, Public health, Health services accessibility) to try, but not the terms after the dashes ( -- Health and hygiene) which are called subdivisions. NOTE: If you hit one of the terms in this Subject list, HOLLIS will find records with the term, say  "Food supply", only on records in the set originally formed by searching Negro* health

Redo your search using the terms that HOLLIS uses.   Subdivisions can be applied to other Subject terms. Thus:

  • African Americans -- Health and hygiene
  • Chinese Americans -- Health and hygiene

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book published during your era may be a primary source, but certain kinds of primary sources, including originally unpublished sources such as letters and diaries published later, have particular terms attached to their Subject terms in a HOLLIS record.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:
Subject contains: African American physicians
AND
Subject contains: Archives OR Correspondence OR Diaries OR Manuscripts OR Sources OR Narrative OR Oral OR Interviews

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.

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

WorldCat

WorldCat (Harvard subscription version) A collective catalog of thousands of libraries including Harvard.  Use Advanced search
At Options (top right) adjust Record list size to 100
There will often be multiple entries for the same book

WorldCat.org (Public version) Choose Open Content, or Format: Website

Digital Libraries

HathiTrust Digital Library includes a searchable database of digitized books and periodicals contributed by numerous libraries. Includes items contributed by these libraries to Google Books and to Internet Archive but with some unique material. Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata. The catalog can be searched separately. Globally full text searchable.

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

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a catalog of digitized historical sources from libraries and archives all move the US

Digital Libraries by State: These websites list hundreds of local, state, and regional resources.

Digital Collections

Besides HathiTrust there are many other digital libraries, some general - some specialized, which offer digitized primary sources.

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics provides print, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University libraries and archives.

Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (Univ. of Maryland), 1882- present, offers resources on minority health and health disparities research and policy. Includes news sources, secondary sources, images, and other material

Medical Heritage Library Anti-Black Racism in Medicine

Roots of Racism in Medicine from Medical Heritage Library (largely Black racism but may not fit in this exact section)

History of Social Welfare Digital Collection

Selected Resources Documenting Social Welfare

Social Welfare History Project

List of Digital Collections on Medicine & Health (Sam Houston St. U)

Finding Primary Sources Online

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. 

Chinese AND health AND Sources  [Use caps for AND]

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

Archival Records

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

Guide to Library and Archival Collections of African Americans in Medicine and Biomedical Research is a summary of the related materials available at the National Library of Medicine

A Guide to Ethnic Health Collections in the United States, by T. Gibbs. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, 139 pp.
HOLLIS Record
--Rev. ed. of: Ethnic health collections in the United States. East Point, GA: Jamilla Powers, 1993.

City Directories

These list schools, churches, government agencies, charitable societies, fraternal organizations, etc.

The major online sources are:

Films/Videos

As well as entertainment films, there are documentary films and newsreels. Tools for finding films listed in this guide.  For newsreels. The Library has a guide for streaming video.

Internet Archive  Put your search term in Any field. Adjust Mediatype is: to movies

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)    Search for your topic. Select Type: Moving image  on the left.

WorldCat Open Access  Advanced Search. Adjust Databases from WorldCat to OpenAccessContent. Open Options (upper right). Change Record list size from 10 to 100.

Search:
Keyword: [your search term(s)
AND
Genre/Form: video OR audiovisual

WorldCat OAIster (Union catalog of digital resources)  Advanced Search. Adjust Databases: from WorldCat to OAIster.  Open Options (upper right). Change Record list size from 10 to 100.

Search:
Keyword: [your search term(s)
AND
Keyword: ge=video

BBC Archives

British Pathé offers numerous British newsreels and documentaries

Academic Video Online has numerous modern documentaries together with newsreels from 1929 to the present.

Other sources for film and video are listed in the Library Research Guide for History, which also has pages for television and radio.

Legal Sources

 Health care law and ethics in a nutshell, by Mark A. Hall, Ira Mark Ellman, Daniel S. Strouse. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group
HOLLIS Records
--Editions: 1990,  1999, 2011, 2020

Magazines

Sources for magazines (popular periodicals) are listed on the in the General and Popular Indexes pages of the Library Research guide for History.

Newspapers

See Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes

Policy Literature, Working Papers, Think Tank Reports

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

Political Literature

PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) (1915- ) indexes international public and social policy literature. Includes journal articles, books, book chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, government documents, etc.

JSTOR offers full-text of complete runs (up to about 5 years ago) of numerous journals. Allows simultaneous or individual journal searching, full-text searching optional, of many educational journals. List of included journals.

International bibliography of political science (1953- ), included in International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, is a bibliography of periodical articles, books, essays in books, and government publications.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (1975- )