An overview of primary and secondary sources

Content by Dylan Owen Development specialist at the National Library

What are primary sources?A primary source is an item created around or during a specific event, place or time.They are a record of a person’s perspective or experience of an event, place or time.

What are primary sources?Primary sources reveal personal information rarely contained in books and articles of the time. They offer students a direct link to the lives of people in the past.

What types of primary sources are there?

Digital photograph

Tweet

Email

Website

Wiki

Blog entry

Poster

Artwork

Letter

Photograph

Manuscript

Ephemera

Map

Types of primary sources: Ephemera

Understanding primary sources It is important to find out what primary sources are telling us and how. •Who created this primary source? •When and why was it created?•What type of primary source is it?•What does it tell you about a place or event •What questions does it raise?•Why is this historically important?

Using primary sources

There are amazing resources out there – use them!

• Make sure you cite your sources

• Check for any conditions or restrictions

• What can I use and reuse?• Respect the material, the

creator and the subject

Teacher and children, reading outside, by unknown photographer, ca. 1934. Alexander Turnbull Library. 1/2-068959-F

What are secondary sources?Secondary sources provide interpretations and explanations of events often after they took place.

A secondary source is created by analysing and synthesising information. Examples include, newspaper or magazine articles, books, online encyclopaedias etc.

Secondary sources are often valuable in providing an overview or perspective of an historical event or time.

SummaryPrimary sources Secondary sources

• Are first-hand accounts • Second-hand, published accounts

• Provide clues that historians call the ‘historical record’

• Can include some primary sources, eg direct quotes or excerpts

• Are often unpublished • Interpret an event

• Can include some primary sources, eg direct quotes or excerpts