Librarian
Research/IT Desk
Contact:
Contact the Reference Librarians online
reference@carleton.edu
reference@carleton.edu
507-222-4264
What are primary sources?
Primary sources are the original works, creations, or phenomena from a certain time period that scholars analyze in order to produce insight. Primary sources can include:
- correspondence (personal and public)
- fiction, (i.e poetry)
- memoirs and diaries
- artwork and photographs
- artifacts
- political demonstrations
- Primary sources guideA guide to primary sources in all disciplines taught at Carleton.
Websites and Digital Collections
- Primary Sources, Oxford Islamic Studies OnlineMore than 400 primary source documents that can be filtered by era, topic, and region.
- Shangri La: Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and DesignThe online home for Doris Duke's personal collection of approximately 2,500 objects.
- Records of Bahrain: primary documents, 1820-1960 This link opens in a new window
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A key selection of facsimile original British government documents detailing the history and development of Bahrain between 1820 and 1960. The set includes a map box containing 12 maps dated 1828–1955 including three sheets of the table of the Ruling Al Khalifah (´Utbi) family of Bahrain.
- Islamic Heritage Project
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A collection of digitized Islamic primary sources from Harvard University. - Islamic Manuscripts from Mali, Library of Congress
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Features 32 manuscripts as well as special collections of maps, photographs, and related information. - Islamic Manuscripts from the Princeton Digital Library
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- Shahnama Project, Cambridge University
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A comprehensive collection of manuscripts of the Shahnama, the Persian epic 'Book of Kings', completed by the poet Firdausi in AD 1010. - African & Middle Eastern Reading Room, Library of Congress
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The online presence of the LOC's African & Middle Eastern Division, a major world resource center housing more than 650, 000 volumes. - Arabic Collections Online
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Publicly available digital library of public domain Arabic language content. ACO currently provides digital access to 16,002 volumes across 9,484 subjects drawn from rich Arabic collections of distinguished research libraries. - Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library
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AMEEL is a Web-based portal and a digital collection of information for the study of the Middle East, including its history, culture, development, and contemporary face. - Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922: From Silk Road to Soviet Rule
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Colonial Office Files from The National Archives, UK
