Straight to the Source:
Locating Primary Sources at Guilford

The Friends Historical Collection offers students the opportunity to utilized unique primary sources from the college archives and from our other holdings. Some of these are published sources which can be located by using the NC-PALS library catalog. Unpublished sources are not included in the catalog. Contact us for assistance in locating materials from the archival and manuscript collections.

A variety of primary sources are also available through Hege Library via publications housed in the main library and through online resources. The following tips can be used to locate materials in the Friends Historical Collection, Hege Library, and beyond.

Finding Published Primary Sources in Print:

Use the NC-PALS Library Catalog to locate print sources such as published letters or diaries. These sources will often be shelved along with secondary sources in the main part of the library. Key terms to use in searching to limit the search to primary documents include "correspondence" and "diaries." Contact a reference librarian for additional assistance with Hege Library resources outside of the Friends Historical Collection.

Selected Examples:

  • Title: Kamikaze diaries : reflections of Japanese student soldiers / Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney.
    Call Number: D792.J3 O265 2006
  • Title: African-American exploration in West Africa : four nineteenth-century diaries
    Call Number: DT634 .A37 200
  • Title: The selected papers of Margaret Sanger / edited by Esther Katz ; assistant editors, Cathy Moran Hajo and Peter C. Engelman.
    Call Number: HQ764.S3 A25 2003

Example Documents and Digitized Sources Available Online:

Documenting the American South

Greensboro Voices (Oral Histories of the Civil Rights era)

North Carolina Quakers and the Civil War

[Go to Web Sites (by Subject ) - History for more examples]

Example Full-Text Subscription Databases Available to Guilford students:

African American Newspapers: The 19th Century

American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography

Early American Newspapers

North American Women's Letters and Diaries

Sanborn Maps

[Go to Databases (Alphabetical) for direct links and a full list of online databases at Guilford]

Visiting Archives and Special Collections:

Locating North Carolina Special Collections - NC-ECHO (Exploring Cultural Heritage Online)
Finding other special collections - Repositories of Primary Resources