Primary sources for historical research: introduction

This guide is a reorganized and updated version of a web guide which originally appears as a part of Guide to Major Microform Holdings in History, a series of web guides prepared by John Henneman, History Bibliographer, and last revised circa 1996. The web guides, in turn, were based on three complementary guides that were prepared previously: Microform Holdings of Historical Interest (August, 1968), by Earle Coleman; Microform Holdings of Historical Interest (Supplement) (August 1970), by Earle Coleman; and Major Historical Resources on Microform excluding Newspapers (April, 1985) by John Henneman. Selected sections of the web guides were revised and updated by James Snow in Fall 2003. In guides revised after 2003, some text in the descriptions of individual items has been taken from publishers' web sites and printed guides; other descriptions were written by Elizabeth Bennett or Princeton University Library staff.

The guides were intended to provide an orientation to primary source collections at Princeton University, and were compiled with the needs of undergraduate history majors foremost in mind. The guides, therefore, emphasize materials in English. Periodicals and newspapers are, in general, not listed; see Finding U.S. newspapers at Princeton and Finding world newspapers at Princeton for guides to our holdings of newspapers.

These guides list materials held by Princeton University, plus some collections at Princeton Theological Seminary and at the Center for Research Libraries. They do not include primary source collections elsewhere. For these, see Identifying primary sources in archives and libraries.