Finding primary sources in AM Explorer

Finding primary sources is crucial when you start your thesis. Which specific sources you need for your research, depends on your topic. Often newspapers, pamphlets and government records are used. But there are many other types that you could study. Check the sources used in monographs and articles on your topic. Those can give you interesting ideas. You can also have a look at databases with large and diverse primary resource collections, like AM Explorer, Archives Unbound or Internet Archive. This January dr. Laura Blomvall from AM visited the UvA and gave an insightful training on how to search in AM Explorer databases. AM also offers a short training video. 

Searching in AM Explorer is best done in a two-steps-approach:

1. Find out which collection(s) hold the most interesting sources on your topic of interest.
2. Go to that specific collection and search more thorough on keyword combinations and types of resources (like newspapers, diaries, correspondence, film etc). 

Step 1 Which collection? 

     www.databases.uba.uva.nl > AM Explorer > Collections      

At this moment AM Explorer consists of 80 collections on different topics, time periods and geography.

You can either:

• browse or filter through the topics and click on a collection (then go to step 2),
• or type in your keyword to search generally through all of the 80 collections. The result will give you insight into which database will have the most and/or relevant primary sources.  

Result from a keyword search

Step 2 Search within a collection

Each collection has a separate interface. You can in each, however, combine search terms via an Advanced Search option and also see what kind of resources are available for that specific collection

English keywords are added to each item in a collection. And using wildcards and boolean search operators is possible. 

Final remarks
Statistics have shown that most users search via a general keyword search (step 1) and choose documents from the results overview. I would, however, suggest doing step 2 as well. By visiting a specific collection you can search more thoroughly, and find more relevant primary sources.   

The two-steps-approach can also be used for a similar database collection of Archives Unbound.   

Finally, the content is mostly focussing on sources in the English language. But more will be added in different languages in the future. I tried searching on the Dutch word: "slavernij" (slavery) which lead to interesting sources. 

If you have any questions then let me know and I will be happy to help you.