Archives & Special Collections

Courtesy William H. Hannon Library

There are two fundamental things to remember about primary sources:

• Primary sources require analysis: Although we sometimes talk about primary sources as "raw materials," they were each created for a purpose by a person or people and so they reflect the complexities of the moment of their creation.

• Like archives, primary sources are not neutral: They represent the motivations, biases, and historical context of the person or people who made them; in that way, they can both offer a window to a moment in time and reproduce historical harm.

Before you can successfully interpret a primary source you must first evaluate it. Primary sources can be used to develop arguments, but often they also elicit further questions and require verification, underscoring the idea that research is a process.

There are three key dimensions of a primary source to consider first:

1. Materiality (What exactly is it? What can the format alone tell you?)

2. Context (What do you need to know to fully understand it? Who, when, why, where, and how fit here, but you may also need deeper historical background to make sense of what you're looking at.)

3. Content (What information, evidence, or narrative does it convey?)

Once you've answered these questions, there are a few more concepts to consider when evaluating primary sources:

• Authenticity (Is this thing what it purports to be? Do I believe this is real?)

• Authority (Is the creator a credible source on this subject? Are they somehow suspicious? Why?)

• Value (Information? Evidence? Cultural significance? Monetary?)

• Power (At its creation, who had control? Who is represented? Who is left out? Does it support or undermine established power structures? How?)

• Mediation (How was it originally presented? If it’s out of its original context, how is it being presented now? Who or what might be influencing your interpretation? If it has been saved in an archive or collection, why? And by whom?)

(SAA-ACRL/RBMS Joint Task Force on the Development of Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy. 2018. Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy. https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/GuidelinesForPrimarySourceLiteracy-June2018.pdf.)

Ethical considerations for use and reuse:

• Confidentiality as outlined in state or federal statutes (e.g., FERPA, government records)
• Respect for privacy (e.g., third parties who may not even know they are implicated in a source, juvenile subjects, sensitive content)
• Cultural context (e.g., the sharing of photographic materials in some cultures)
• Copyright (e.g., permissions and restrictions on reproducing materials)

Ethical considerations for creation and sharing:

• Informed consent—Who is represented? Who has control? Are all parties fully aware of implications of the creation, use, or reuse of the source?

• Copyright—The story and the telling of the story are two different assets in most cases, and copyright law applies regardless of stated policy, marks, etc. Monetary value, usually of a creative output or a particularly unique story, often requires more formal legal agreements.