These are rich, comprehensive collections of primary source material, purchased by Smith College. You will not find these sources in Google!
Primary sources:
In short, primary sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research.
Adapted from Using Primary Sources on the Web, History Section, Reference and User Services Association, American Library Association, accessed 10/3/11]
For an overview of primary sources available at Smith and in the Five Colleges, consult the Find Primary Sources page.
Try KEYWORDS ANYWHERE to find a few relevant titles. Then track through on the Subject(s) listed on individual book descriptions to conduct a more comprehensive subject search.
As you look through lists of subjects, watch for the words "personal narratives," "diaries," "interviews," "correspondence," "pamphlets," and "sources" as part of the subject headings.
You can also search for these words, for example, palestine and (diaries or narratives or correspondence)
Other clues may be buried in the title, authorship, date of publication, etc., e.g. Sherna Gluck's An American Feminist in Palestine: The Intifada Years.
You can also look for old travel guides , combining the name of the guide (Baedecker, Thomas Cook, John Murray) and the country or region of interest, for example, (baedeker or thomas cook or john murray) and palestine.
See examples of primary source compilations in the box to the left.
If you would like to work with primary source materials in the original, consider using Smith's Sophia Smith Collection and College Archives. Both collections include manuscript material relating to missionary and overseas relief work. Examples:
Consult with the collection curators for other ideas.
Mount Holyoke and Amherst colleges also have strong collections relating to missionary work in the Middle East. Five College archival collections are listed in Asteria. Try searching Asteria for missions or missionaries.