Contact:
Briggs Library 019
605-688-5569
https://libguides.sdstate.edu/elizabeth-fox
Office Hours:
Please make an appointment using the "Meet" button below.
Subjects:
Aerospace Studies; Consumer Sciences; Engineering; Government Information; Health & Nutritional Sciences; History, Political Science, Philosophy & Religion; School of Performing Arts; Sociology & Rural Studies
"Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research."
American Library Association, Reference and User Services Section. 2012. Using primary sources on the web. Retrieved October 19, 2012 from http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/pubs/usingprimarysources.
Use the library catalog to search for government documents and books on a topic. Note that not all the books in our catalog will be primary sources but there are some collections of letters and some diaries that are published and listed in our catalog. Books also contain pictures that are considered primary sources.
Use archives such as the South Dakota State University Archives and Special Collections to find primary sources on topics of interest to the archives. SDSU Archives has a number of collections including the papers of Ben Reifel and Senator Tom Daschle. They even have some cuneiform tablets and other artifacts.
There are many websites with primary sources on them. You must always be careful about evaluating the sources you find online but there are many historical collections that have been digitized. Changing the format of the original, if nothing else is changed does not change its status as a primary source. Below are some good sources for primary source documents.
In addition to the sites listed on the Websites page of this guide, these sites offer primary source materials online.
Letters between Ben Reifle and Richard Nixon
Historical Newpaper Article about Hobo Day
Video of the Hobo Day parade from 2010. Peace, Love, and Hobo.
Department of the Interior Serials Set
Maps such as this 1892 presidential election result by state map
Copies of Dakota Territorial Documents have been scanned into microfilm and are available under the call number F655 .D3.
There is a guide to help determine what is on each roll.