Primary sources are materials that provide firsthand testimony to a subject under investigation. Researchers often use these firsthand accounts to understand events and movements from the viewpoint of people living during that time period. Primary sources include documents and artifacts created during the time period under study. These documents and artifacts might include books, letters, diaries, photographs, newspaper articles, pamphlets, government records, songs, poems, and videos. Primary sources also include writings and recordings by witnesses who experienced the events or conditions being documented. For example, oral histories, autobiographies, and memoirs are primary sources.
In religious studies, primary sources include sacred texts and writings by religious officials or practitioners of the religion.
Sometimes collections of primary source documents are republished in books. To find books like these, search WPI Library Search for books about your topic and add keywords like documents, primary sources, documentary history, essential readings, sacred texts, autobiography, or sourcebook to your search terms.
Here are some examples of books containing reprinted primary sources:
Sourcebook in Shinto: Selected Documents by 
Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions by 
For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems by 
The Message and the Book: Sacred Texts of the World's Religions by 
Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro by 
The cover of this work by an unknown author bears the title Translation of the Entire Text of the "Yao Annals of Creation." In this bilingual text, the Dongba text is in color and the Chinese text is in black. The Dongba glyphs are ancient characters that were used to record the dialect of the western Naxi nationality centered around the Li River in Yunnan. They were developed in approximately the seventh century. The Annals of Creation reflect the understanding of the Naxi people concerning the natural world and the origins of humankind, and depict the Naxi people's ceaseless migrations over the course of their history and the struggle of their ancestors against nature.
Copyright statement: The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.
To find primary sources via Google, try adding keywords like documents, primary sources, documentary history, or sourcebook to your search terms. Primary sources can often be found on library, museum, and government websites.
Examples of Primary Source Collections:
