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Finding Primary Sources for FSEM 100U6 - True Crime
Finding primary sources can be tricky. For this class, primary sources are considered newspapers, magazines, interviews, court cases, videos, photographs, crime scene evidence, and any publications that came out around the time of the crime. Below is a compilation of resources to aid you with "hunting" for materials.
Need help with your annotated bibliography? Click here!
National Center for Victims of Crime
Advocates for victims’ rights, trains professionals who work with victims, and serves as a trusted source of information on victims’ issues.
NCVC Podcasts Series
They also have a podcast series about current and past events in crime history.
Serial Killers Info
Resource that provides primary sources that includes videos, images, and transcripts
FBI Records: The Vault
FOIA library that is digitally accessible with declassified FBI files
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Recordings of public radio and public television broadcasts from the 1930s to the present.
Avalon Project
Includes "digital documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy, and government" from ancient times to the present.
Digital State Archives
Links to the state archives of all fifty states.
Crime Museum Library
Located in Washington, DC, they have a digital library with primary source materials like mugshots, artifacts, forensic evidence, and much more.
Eyewitness to History
"History through the eyes of those who lived it." Covers the ancient world to the present.
Virginia Memory Digital Collection (Library of Virginia)
The Library of Virginia, the state archives and reference library, "maintains vast and varied collections of print materials, manuscripts, archival records, newspapers, photographs and ephemera, maps and atlases, rare books, and fine art that tell the history of the commonwealth and its people."
PACER: Public Access to Court Electronic Records
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is a service of the federal Judiciary. Its mission is to provide the public with the broadest possible access to court records and to foster greater public understanding of the court system.
Serial Killers Documentaries
Although a documentary is a secondary source, they often contain primary source material.
Searching Google
Within a search engine such as Google, put your person's name in quotes and then follow it with a type of primary source.
For example: “ted bundy” archives
Some primary source keywords:
Also consider adding site:.gov as part of your search string to search only government web sites.
For example: "Ted Bundy" letters site:.gov
Credit to Kristy Floyd at Chesapeake College
American Decades Series vol. 1-12
American Decades Primary Sources
New York Magazine
Available for free through Google Books. If you search for crime or true crime and click search all issues, many of their magazines have articles about crime/true crime events.
MasterFILE Premier
This database includes both magazines and journals. You can limit your search results to magazines by checking the "Magazines" box on the left side of the search results page.
See also the UMW Guide for finding Magazines and Advertisements.
Current News
Historical Newspapers
To read articles from today's newspapers, you could go to newspaper websites... but you might hit a paywall. Most newspapers will only show you a few articles if you don't have a subscription.
So, instead of going to newspaper websites to read today's articles, use the library databases, such as Factiva, Nexis Uni, or Newspaper Source Plus. They contain the same articles that you'd see on newspaper websites, and you can access them with your UMW username and password.
