Finding Secondary Sources
To find books about your character, do a keyword search in the LBCC Library Catalog. If you do not find any books in our catalog, try searching in WorldCat.
To find articles about your character, do a keyword search in Academic Search Premier
If you are looking for a particular book or article that we do not have at the LBCC Library, you can request the item through interlibrary loan (ILL). For more details, please see our ILL webpage.
Finding Primary Sources
One of the best ways to find primary sources about your character is get a good secondary source, like a book or an article, and look in the bibliography to see which primary sources the author used. Once you have citations for some primary sources, you can search library catalogs and/or the Web for these sources.
Since many primary sources can now be found on the Web, it is often fruitful to do a keyword search in Google for the character name followed by "primary sources". For example, the Google search for Mother Jones "Primary Sources" leads to a website with a link to the Mother Jones Collection of papers and photographs.
It may also be helpful to search for your character in one of the primary source collections listed in the "Sources on the Web" section below.
- Library of Congress Digital Collections
Collections of written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. - Digital Public Library of America
A tool that searches millions of digitized primary sources from across the United States. - Making of America
Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. - Project Gutenberg
A library of over 25,000 free books, including many primary sources. - Internet History Sourcebooks Project
A collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly for educational use. Includes the Ancient, Medieval, and Modern History Sourcebooks. - Google Book Search
Another place to look for published primary sources. - Internet Archive
A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. - EuroDocs
Links to European primary source documents - Electronic Text Center at University of Virginia Library
Approximately 1,800 publicly-available ebooks, including major authors, American history, African-American documents, and much more.