Primary Sources: Home

The Online Archive of California (OAC) is a searchable database that includes finding aids for archival and primary source collections at more than 200 libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums in California, including Special Collections & Archives in the Oviatt at CSUN.

After searching, you can limit your search results by holding institution, so you can see everything on your topic at other repositories in Los Angeles (UCLA, Occidental, Loyola Marymount, etc.) that have contributed finding aids to the OAC.

• 19th Century English-Language Journals from the Far East

  This collection provides researchers with six rare English-language journals, five of which were founded by Western missionaries in the Far East in the 19th century, covering a wide range of topics such as East-West communication, Christianity in China and other parts of Asia, and China's political, economic, and cultural landscape.

• African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress, 1933-1947

• America's Historical Newspapers 

  Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1770-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

• Confederate Newspapers: A Collection from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama

  This collection is a mixture of issues and papers from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama ranging from 1861-1865. 

• America in Protest: Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations, The Vietnam Veterans Against the War 

  The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) started in 1967 with six Vietnam veterans marching for peace in New York City. 

• U.S. Congressional Serial Set

  The United States Congressional Serial Set contains reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from the 15th Congress (1817) through the 103rd Congress (1994). Provides access to full-text primary source material on U.S. political, social, cultural, military, and ethnic history, as well as international relations, explorations, genealogy, commerce, and industrial development.

Primary sources are first-hand accounts of an event or time in history that has yet to be interpreted by another person.

Examples of primary sources include:

• diaries, journals, letters, interviews, speeches, memos, manuscripts and other first-person accounts
• memoirs and autobiographies
• official records such as government publications, census data, court reports, police records
• minutes, reports, correspondence of an organization or agency
• newspaper and magazine articles written during the time of the event
• photographs, paintings, film and television programs, audio recordings which document an event
• research such as opinion polls which document attitudes and thought during the time of an event
• artifacts such as objects, tools, clothing, etc. of the time period or eve+

Secondary sources are scholarly monographs or articles that are based on primary source data and analyze, critique, report, summarize, interpret, or restructure that data. They can also be based on a reading of other secondary sources or a combination of primary source data and secondary sources.

Examples of secondary sources include:

• reference books such as encyclopedias, bibliographies, handbooks, etc.
• reviews
• textbooks
• most scholarly books
• most journal and magazine articles