Primary Source Definition
A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person or work of art. Generally, primary sources are contemporary to the events and people described and show minimal or no mediation between the document/artifact and its creator. Primary sources can be written and non-written, the latter including sound, picture, and artifact. Examples include:
- personal correspondence and diaries
- works of art and literature
- speeches and oral histories
- audio and video recordings
- photographs and posters
- newspaper ads and stories
- laws and legislative hearings
- census or demographic records
- plant and animal specimens
- coins and tools
Archival Collections
- New Jersey Hispanic Research and Information Center (Newark Public Library)
- CEMA: California Ethnic Multicultural Archives (UC Santa Barbara)
- Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections (University of New Mexico)
- Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños Library and Archives (Hunter College, City University of NY)
- Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Project and Archive
- Chicano/a Research Collection (Arizona State University)
- Chicano Studies Collection (University of California-Berkeley)
- Chicano Studies Research Center Library (UCLA)
- Cuban Heritage Collection (University of Miami)
- Hispanic Reading Room (Library of Congress)
- CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (City College of New York)
- Julian Samora Library, Institute for Latino Studies (University of Notre Dame)
- Latin America Collection - Princeton Theological Commons (Princeton University)
- Latina/o Cultural Heritage Archives (California State University-Northridge)
- Latina/Latino Studies. Benson Archival Collections (University of Texas at Austin)
- Latino History Collections and Archives. (National Museum of American History)
- Mexican American collections (Stanford University)
- New Mexico Digital Collections ( University of New Mexico)
- Rocky Mountain Online Archive, HIspanic Americans (Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming)
- Survey of Archives of Latino and Latin American Art (MoMA)
Attribution
Some of the information from this page was developed by Columbia College Chicago Library and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.