A finding aid is what archivists use to catalog the items in a particular collection. Unlike libraries, archives group items by the origin, often by whom has donated the materials and are many times titled as such. Most archival items are held in a museum, college, or historical society. Below are some examples of archival collections and their online finding aids.
From Yale University: Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented. Often these sources are created at the time when the events or conditions are occurring, but primary sources can also include autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories recorded later. Primary sources are characterized by their content, regardless of whether they are available in original format, in microfilm/microfiche, in digital format, or in published format.
Amanda Podany (2005) has written in the History Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, "Most primary sources reflect their author's particular point of view; this does not make them less valuable. The reader simply needs to be aware of the author's perspective and to avoid taking the source at face value." In contrast, secondary sources are those resources that analyze an event and are produced by someone who was not present when the event occurred.
Just as people have recorded history for hundreds of years, we are still doing that today, just with new technologies. That means that emails, voicemails, texts, chats, digital photos, and social media posts can be considered primary sources.
To put it in context, a Tweet today was a telegram 150 years ago.
Art is also a primary source. This can include drawings, paintings, photographs, courtroom sketches, political posters and cartoons, and 3D art.
StoryCorps is a contemporary and ongoing oral history project that is being archived by the Library of Congress
Manor College Library houses the Manor College archive containing the history of the college since its founding in 1947. The archive is a closed collection that includes published materials, memorabilia, correspondence, printed matter and other materials generated by the educational community of Manor College since its inception.
