The William & Mary Libraries spend Millions of dollars on databases and e-resources. This is great, but also makes it easy to get overwhelmed and not know where to start. Our history databases are organized to help you find primary sources based on theme or document type (see below). For this class in particular, I will also be highlighting major databases of interest.
Single Most Important Tip for Primary Source Databases:
Keep it simple. Only use a few keywords at a time.
Foremost: look at your secondary sources and see what types of primary sources they use!
Then wrote out your topic again, but this time try find terms people might have used during the time period you're studying.
Most Important tip: USE AS FEW TERMS AS POSSIBLE.
The more search terms you use, the more likely you'll use an anachronistic term. Keep it simple, no more than 2 or 3 terms at once.