Your Research Librarian
Selected Primary Source Discovery Tools
- Primary sources are the original evidence produced by participants in a specific event or time period, witnesses to an event or period in history, or simply people who lived in the distant or recent past
- Some examples of primary sources in travel writing are letters, diaries, official government records, guidebooks and brochures, maps, music, promotional films, contemporary newspaper articles, interviews, original photographs, memoirs, vlogs and social media posts
- AM Explorer This link opens in a new windowAccess millions of pages of primary source collections across the entire portfolio of Adam Matthew Digital, spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries.
Research tip: For AM Explorer, the following collections within may be most helpful to discover primary travel sources: Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture, American History: 1493-1945, Age of Exploration, The Grand Tour, and Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History.
- Watkinson Library/Trinity College Archives Collection Search via ArchivesSpaceSearch here for archival material located in the Trinity College Archives located in the Watkinson Library.
- OneSearch This link opens in a new windowSearch Trinity's catalog and beyond for books, journal articles, streaming video, news articles, primary sources and more. Log in with your Trinity library account to see full results and request materials.
- Internet ArchiveThe Internet Archive and Open Library offers over 8,000,000 fully accessible public domain eBooks. Contains many primary source documents and books to borrow with a free account.
- NYPL Digital CollectionsContains prints, photographs, streaming video, manuscript content from the collections of the New York Public Library
- Artstor This link opens in a new windowNearly 500,000 art images of art, architecture and other forms of visual and material culture. Represents all time periods and cultures. Includes online and offline tools for faculty and students. Note: Artstor is now part of JSTOR. The Artstor website will be retired on August 1, 2024.
- Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930A collection of historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression. Concentrating heavily on the 19th century, Immigration to the US includes over 400,000 pages from more than 2,200 books, pamphlets, and serials, over 9,600 pages from manuscript and archival collections, and more than 7,800 photographs.