Search for Archival Materials - Activity

Introduction | Prep | Presentation | Activity

For Harvard Students: If you are enrolled in the Bookends workshop, please use the Search for Archival Materials - Bookends Activity.

Brainstorm where to start (5 minutes)

U.S. collections example

Imagine that you’re working on finding the papers of Jean van Heijenoort.

You want papers from both his career as Trotsky’s personal secretary and his later career as a prominent philosopher of mathematics.

Use the Archival and Manuscript Collections in the United States flow chart Links to an external site. to figure out which resource might be the best place to start.

Our recommendation: Any one of the major search engines should turn up collections that van Heijenoort is a part of. WorldCat and Archive Finder will return collections in which he is a major contributor. ArchiveGrid and SNAC will return collections where there may be a smaller mention of his name.

For a well-known person with a large volume of saved papers, it can be hard to make sense of the many search results. In this case, we recommend searching American National Biography. A critical biography like the ANB can quickly tell you where the bulk of a person’s papers are. This is especially helpful here, where his papers are split between repositories, including some not mentioned in the ANB. (A reminder not to stop searching just because you found one collection!)

International collections example

Imagine your research involves governmental policies on education in South Africa and Kenya.

Using the strategies on the "All Countries" page of the archives guide, brainstorm what routes you might take to find information about the archival holdings of each of these countries - would it be the same strategy for each country, or different? Why?

Our recommendation: Country development can play a role here. South Africa, as a generally more developed country, has an online searchable catalog of collections. The same does not apply to Kenya. For collections in Kenya, try to find a print catalog or historical article that describes the national archives' holdings.

Colonial South Africa and Kenya have both been colonized by the British, and South Africa has also been colonized by the Dutch. For colonized countries, it may be a good idea to search for archives in their colonizing countries.

Other institutions may also have research guides, like Syracuse University's guide for Kenya National Archives. Links to an external site.

Try it on your own research (25 minutes)

Decide on your task (5 minutes)

Use your research topic to frame a single task around finding relevant archival material. E.g. What is the archival situation in a country that you can use in your research?

Develop a search strategy (5 minutes)

Take a moment to reflect on the type of material you’re searching for. Ask yourself:

  • Who created it?
  • Who is likely to have owned it?
  • Why would it have been saved?
  • Are there any cultural, political, or other forces that might impact where it is saved and accessible?
  • Do you want a brief biography?
  • A guide to archival collections in a particular area or a topic?
  • Dive right into a search for collections?

Remember to explore the “Archival and Manuscripts Collections in the United States” flowchart for materials likely to be located in the United States, and/or the “All Countries” page on the archives guide for materials likely to be located in other countries.

Give it a try! (15 minutes)

If your initial idea isn’t successful, think about why, revise your strategy, and try again.

Keep notes on:

  • Any observations that might impact preservation or accessibility of the material. Such as:
    • The type of material
    • Any potential situations that may arise
  • The strategies that you tried.
    • Were any strategies more or less successful than others?
    • Did you find anything that will help you along the way?

More practice examples (15 minutes)

Take some time to explore different starting points for the following topics. Try to find at least two starting points to compare for each.

  1. An obscure topic

    I want to locate materials about the plant Shortia. I don’t care about botany more generally, I only want to pinpoint things that are relevant to Shortia.

    Our recommendation: For an obscure term like “shortia,” your best bet is to find searchable finding aids, rather than a catalog record. It’s much more likely that this word will occur in the full text of a finding aid, perhaps as the subject of correspondence in a folder.

    You can also: Use a guide to find repositories of major botanists’ papers. Then explore the repository website(s) for an option to search finding aids. Additionally, you can search by scientific names in the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Links to an external site. Here, the results will include some manuscript material.

  2. Corporate archives for a defunct organization

    I want to access the archives of the Polaroid corporation.

    Our recommendation: Search WorldCat or Wikipedia. When a company ceases to exist, their records are often donated or sold to a research repository. Searching WorldCat for the company name as author and archival material as format Links to an external site. often leads you to a collection of papers. Wikipedia will likely have an entry for any well-known company, and may mention the company's archives. In this case, the Baker Library at Harvard's Business School has a huge collection of Polaroid corporation material.

  3. A large category of people

    I’d like to map personal communications among art dealers in the first half of the twentieth century and get a sense of what’s available.

    Our recommendation: Search the Getty Research Institute: Selected Dealer Archives & Locations, Links to an external site.or similar topical guide. “Art dealers” is a big category of people. If you searched through something like WorldCat you’d get swamped with too many results. Guides help you get the overall picture and assess relative importance of different collections.  

  4. A person whose papers were likely processed before 1960

    I want materials on Hungarian-American mathematician John Von Neumann (1903-1957).

    Our recommendation: Search Archive Finder, then WorldCat. Normally WorldCat would be a good first step, but von Neumann died in 1957. If the catalog record(s) for his papers were created before the 1980s, Archive Finder is a better bet. WorldCat is a good second step, in case the papers weren’t donated immediately, or the repository experienced a delay in processing them, or did a recataloging project after 1986, etc.

  5. A personal library

    I’m interested in Henry David Thoreau. I want to know which books he owned and if there’s a way I can find what he wrote in them.

    Our recommendation: Search WorldCat. Subject terms like Library, Private Libraries, and Books and Reading can help you find books about a famous person’s library, often in the form of a published catalog of the books the person owned. These works will also tell you whether the personal library was saved, and where it is currently located.

You have completed Find Your Primary Sources. Explore more modules.

Introduction | Prep | Presentation | Activity