Primary sources (also called primary resources or primary documents) are original records created at the time historical events occurred.
Examples include letters, diaries, journals, letters, oral accounts, hearings, speeches, interviews, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, maps, photographs, government documents, reports, novels, autobiographies, memoirs, newspapers, short stories, artifacts, family trees, business records, the census, coins, stamps, buildings, roads, tools, weapons, articles of clothing, and more.
Some primary sources may be after the fact, such as oral histories or memoirs, if they are created by a person present for the event.
Secondary sources are accounts of the past created by people writing about events sometime after they happened.
When searching for and using online primary sources it is important to evaluate the credibility of the source. A helpful guide on evaluating primary sources can be found at the William & Mary Libraries website, https://guides.libraries.wm.edu/primarysources/evaluate.
GLAM (or Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) refers to institutions that collect and maintain cultural heritage materials of historical interest. As collecting institutions, GLAMs preserve and make accessible valuable primary source collections for scholarly and research use. These primary source collections are typically described by GLAMs using finding aids, guides, or inventories that are often times available online.
The following resources can be used to identify and locate primary sources maintained at GLAMs: