The following strategies can be used in Williams library catalog and other library catalogs, such Williams WorldCat and HathiTrust Digital Library.
Memoirs, speeches, writings, or correspondence of a person can be found by doing a Browse Search by author using the name (last name first) of the person.
Usually, library catalog records have at least one Subject describing the general topic of the book, video, or other material. Subjects can be subdivided to indicate further topical breakdown, geographical location, time period, or the form of the composition. Some of the form subdivisions that indicate the item is a primary source include:
Personal narratives, Correspondence, Diaries, Interviews (useful when you don't have the name of a specific person)
Sources (collections of primary sources)
Caricatures and cartoons and Pictorial works
Use the Advanced Search to combine a subject for one of the subdivisions above and keywords or subjects for a topic.
Examples:
Note: the * finds any ending; plantation or plantations, soldier or soldiers, spouse or spouses.
Remember, primary sources were written around the same time as an event or during a particular historical time period. To find contemporary writings, you can do searches in the library catalog by subject and limit to the years in question. A word of caution: this search strategy will not find materials that were reprinted at a later date.
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