Finding Books That Include Primary Sources
To identify books that are primary sources:
1) Look for books written by people who were involved in the event or activity you are researching. (Tip: When you look at secondary sources, write down the names of people and then look for them as authors.)
2) In the BGSU Libraries Catalog, the OhioLINK Central Catalog, and WorldCat, books that have been assigned subjects with the subheadings in the list below might be primary sources. Not all books that include primary sources will include one of these words or phrases in a subject heading.
--Diaries
--Correspondence
--Biography
--Sources
--Anecdotes
--Personal narratives
--Interviews
Examples:
Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Correspondence
Pioneers -- Pennsylvania -- Correspondence
Boston (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Sources
Society of Friends -- History -- 17th century -- Sources
United States -- History -- Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713 -- Personal narratives
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a database of books, magazines, audio and video files, maps, etc. It's a good place to find books that are old enough to be no longer under copyright.
For a more complex search, click on the Advanced Search link just under the search box on the home page. This allows you to customize your search in many ways.
Searching the Catalogs for Books
To identify books, search the three main catalogs:
- BGSU Libraries CatalogSearch for books, videos, music scores, CDs, journals & newspapers, and archival and special collections available at the BGSU Libraries.
- OhioLINK Library CatalogIndexes books, videos, music, electronic resources from college and university libraries, the State Library of Ohio, and some large public libraries in Ohio. Request online, with delivery to Jerome Main Circulation desk in 2-3 business days.
- WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch)WorldCat contains catalog records, locations, and library borrowing information for books, journals, videos, sound recordings, archival materials and more owned by millions of libraries all over the world.
HathiTrust Digital Library
The HathiTrust Digital Library provides access to a database of digitized books and other materials. You can search the catalog, search full text, or browse the public collections. Note that not all books are available full text.
To find only those books that are available full text, you can search the catalog on the main search page and click on the box next to "Full View Only."
To do a more complex search, click on the Advanced Catalog Search link. You can also select "Full View Only" on this page.
The HathiTrust Digital Library includes some user-compiled collections of HathiTrust books, such as those listed below.
Google Books
Google Books is a searchable database of books and magazine articles, but not all of the books are full text.
Simply type in keywords to do a search. You can also browse by subjects, listed on the left side of the page. Each book in the results list will include the designation:
- Full View -- You can view the entire text of the book
- Limited Preview -- You can view some pages of the book
- Snippet View -- You can see the publication information, plus a few sentences from the book
- No Preview Available -- You can see only the publication information about the book
To search for only full text books:
- Go to the Advanced Book Search
- Fill in the elements of your search
- From the Search: line, choose Full View Only
- Click on the Google Search button