Primary source collections
Primary sources are documents or objects that were written or created at the time under investigation. They provide first-hand accounts or personal viewpoints of an event or time period. They can be as diverse as an eyewitness account, diary entry, newspaper report, or an interview of an event that reflects the time period in which it was conducted. The History library guide contains descriptions of the online collections of primary sources relevant to particular areas of history listed under the relevant tabs. For further information on finding and using primary sources, please see the Primary sources for humanities library guide.
The Library holds a collection of primary source materials in different formats: books and dvds, online collections, and in microfilm or microfiche.
Primary sources can be found using:
- Search, the Library catalogue
- online databases
- newspapers
- microfilm collections
- Monash University Library's Special Collections
Find primary sources using Search
1. Go to Advanced Search.
2. Change the default any to in subject
3. Use any of the below terms, which will bring up primary sources:
- sources
- diaries
- correspondence
- trials
- pamphlets
- manuscripts
- "personal narratives"
Combine them with OR to search for more than one 'type' of primary source.
4. In the next box type a keyword that describes your topic.
5. Change the Search Scope from All resources to Library Collection
For example if you were looking for writings by early settlers in Australia that described their relationships with Australian Aborigines, you could search as follows:
The asterisk retrieves all the words which start with aborigin, ie: aboriginal and aborigines. The quotation marks around "personal narratives" ensures that the two words are found as a phrase.
Primary source databases for Jewish studies & Holocaust studies
These databases and websites contain first-hand accounts of witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust.
- USC Shoah Foundation Visual history archiveWith a collection of nearly 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses, in 32 languages and from 56 countries, this is the largest visual history archive in the world.
- Testaments to the HolocaustTestaments to the Holocaust is the online publication of the archives of the Wiener Library, London, the first archive to collect evidence of the Holocaust and the anti-semitic activities of the German Nazi Party. 75% of the collection is written in German.
- Jewish Survivors of the HolocaustProvided by the British Library, these recordings are powerful personal accounts of the Holocaust from Jewish survivors living in Britain. The collection contains interviews from two oral history projects, the Living Memory of the Jewish Community (C410) and the Holocaust Survivors' Centre Interviews (C830).
- Telling their storiesThis website from the Urban School of San Francisco provides student interviews with Holocaust survivors and refugees.
- Fortunoff video archive for Holocaust testimoniesThis archive contains 4,400 testimonies of willing individuals with first hand experience of the Nazi persecutions, including those in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants and liberators.
- Post-war Europe : refugees, exile and resettlement, 1945-1950. This link opens in a new windowThis online archive delivers essential primary sources for the study and understanding of the challenges facing the European peoples in the aftermath of World War II. It covers the politics and administration of the post war refugee crisis in Europe well as the day-to-day survival of the refugees themselves, and contains newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars. These essays offer an insight into key themes and provide direct links to the documents mentioned and a means to access for students unfamiliar with the original materials. Five documentary British Pathe films provide visual evidence of key issues covered by the documents.