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Finding Primary Sources

A guide to finding primary sources for History research.

Finding Sound Recordings Online

Sound recordings may be found in subscription databases and on the open web.  A few notable sources include:

American Memory, Library of Congress

Internet Archive

National Public Radio

Oral Histories in Libraries

Books with Oral Histories - this link will take you to a list of books in Le Moyne's library that contain oral histories.

Oral Histories Index
In the First Person is a free, high quality, professionally published, in-depth index of more than 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world.

WorldCat
Using the Advanced search, limit the format to "sound recordings" then search on "oral history" under Keyword to find oral history collections.  Add additional Author or Subject terms to focus results

Audio Materials as Primary Sources

Using audio formats as primary materials can bring an added dimension to your research. Audio materials include everything from oral histories, to music, to radio broadcasts. As with other genres of sources, it is not just the format of the item in use that determines whether it is a primary source, but how it is being used.

For example, a radio broadcast can be used as a secondary interpretation of an event or story if it is used to support an argument or as evidence of a particular issue. However, that same radio broadcast can be considered to be a primary source by becoming itself the object of interpretation. This style of analysis (sometimes called content analysis) seeks to interrogate the content and medium of a given message for meaning.

Audio sources, then, can be very useful to primary research and open avenues of inquiry that can be very rich. While keeping in mind the above discussion of the dual nature of primary audio sources, it is possible to make some broad generalizations about what kinds of things might be primary audio sources.

Interviews and Oral Histories

Interviews and Oral Histories (first-person accounts of lives or events) can almost always be considered primary audio sources. These sources are often akin to biographies or autobiographies, and as such can be used as primary sources. There are many of these types of sources around, and many more emerging all the time, but you may also create your own through interviews that you conduct and materials that you generate from these interviews.

Listen to an example from Story Corps

Broadcasts & Speeches

Recordings of radio and other audio-format broadcasts and speeches often present a window onto important events, people, and movements throughout history. Speeches, as the first-hand product of the speaker, are generally considered to be a primary source. Approaching broadcasts from the content-analysis perspective mentioned above allows one to broaden potential primary sources out to contemporary items as well as historical ones.

Listen to an example

Recorded Music

Just as one might examine and interpret a novel or visual artwork, recorded music is generally always regarded as a primary source. Likewise, sonic art, soundscapes, or any other item that uses the medium of sound to create artistic expression can be viewed as this type of primary source.

Connect to Music Online Library

Recording a Phonograh

[Countess Iska Teleki recordin... Digital ID: 1536854. New York Public Library

[Countess Iska Teleki recording phonograph.]  New York Public Library.  MssCol 2703.  Digital ID: 1536854.  Click on photo for full details.

Evaluating Audio

Just as researchers must carefully evaluate what they read, they must also carefully evaluate what they hear. 

Ask who created the recording and for what purpose.

Who was the intended audience?

Was the sound recording meant to entertain, inform, persuade?

Need Help Getting Started?

Ask a librarian for help.  Contact your subject specialist to find out about useful reference sources, guides to the literature, and databases on your topic. 

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