HIST 257: Inventing Modern Science (HC): Primary Sources

Primary sources, accounts and other kinds of documents written at the time of an event or era, allow a nuanced and detailed understanding of historical issues. 

Sources can take many different forms.  Categories below describe online collections, ways to locate primary sources in Tripod and Worldcat, and selected examples that are particularly significant.

Print Copies

Still other sources are available in printed form.  Many of them will be listed in Tripod or WorldCat under subject terms and the word "sources." For example, the search science history sources results in books including:

        

       

                                                                                   

 

Science in Europe, 1500-1800: a primary source    Contents

                  

The trial of Galileo, 1612-1633   Contents

Additional titles that have been edited, reprinted in facsimiles, or transferred to microfilm can be borrowed through E Z Borrow or interlibrary loan if they are not in Tripod. 

Books printed in the 16th or 17th century are kept in libraries' rare book collections.  You can go to Bryn Mawr, the University of Pennsylvania, and other local libraries to see examples of these books:  

While some primary source books and other kinds of materials have been digitized, there are great numbers which exist only in print or manuscript, particularly when it comes to documents and records which are often in one unique copy.  Visiting a rare book library will give you access to additional source material, as you can readily see from the resources on Friends Hospital here in Haverford's Special Collection Library.

Use the databases below to search for primary source material in special collection libraries.