Generation Park

Primary sources are records or documents created at the time historical events occurred. Primary sources could also be made after historical events have taken place by someone who participated in those events (for example, memoirs or oral histories). Some of the most common types of primary sources are letters, manuscripts, diaries, newspapers, statistics, interviews, memoirs, oral histories, speeches, objects, or artifacts.  Some examples are below:

Secondary sources interpret or analyze an historical event. Most secondary sources are books, journal and magazine articles, or reference works like dictionaries and encyclopedias.

For more information on primary and secondary sources, check out the following websites:

• The American Library Association also has a guide on finding and using primary sources on the Web.
• This guide from the UC Berkeley Libraries explains primary and secondary sources.
• The Library of Congress' Digital Collections offers a wide variety of primary sources in different subject areas.