Primary sources are original materials that have not been edited, evaluated, or otherwise altered by a second party--in other words, contemporaneous records or firsthand accounts that document and provide intellectual access to a historical situation via the evidence left behind by participants or observers.
Examples of primary sources include such as letters, diaries, interviews, speeches, audio and video recordings, statistics, legal or organizational records, and artifacts (including works of art). Books and articles that select, analyze, criticize, modify, or interpret information from these materials are considered secondary sources.
To locate primary sources in the UCSB Libraries, search Pegasus by combining your topic with terms such as sources, archives, correspondence, diaries, facsimiles, interviews, inventories, notebooks, personal narratives, registers, sketchbooks, specimens.
Collections of primary sources reproduced on microfilm or microfiche (e.g., Historic American Buildings Survey) may also be located by searching Pegasus.
Primary sources are often found in archives, which may or may not provide online access to the primary sources or their finding aids (which typically index archival holdings at the level of the collection rather than specific items). See the Special Collections website for more detailed information about archival holdings in the UCSB Libraries.
Beyond UCSB, WorldCat can be used to locate archival materials at other institutions, though these materials are generally not available through Interlibrary Loan.
A *selected* list of websites providing online access to primary source archival materials related to art and architecture appears below.
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