UNCW Library also contains some unpublished materials in its archives and special collections departments. These are primary source materials that are often one-of-a-kind or rare. The University Archives collects materials on the history of UNCW, and Special Collections focuses on the history of Southeastern North Carolina, but both of these collections have significance beyond just our university or our region. For example, if you are researching the civil rights movement, you might use University Archives to investigate how college students in the South responded to this movement.
To find these collections, you can use the search box on the Archives and Special Collections webpage, but definitely also contact the University Archives or Special Collections staff. They know best what's in the collections and can tell you if anything they have is relevant to your research.
Primary sources are available both online and in the library. To locate published primary source materials in Randall Library, use the UNCW Library Catalog. You can start with a keyword search for your topic (e.g. "civil rights movement"), which will retrieve secondary sources as well as primary. From there, drill down to focus on primary sources by:
1. Clicking on a relevant record, such as this book.
2. Scrolling down to the section labeled "Subject" and clicking on a relevant subject term. Subject terms are "controlled vocabulary" terms that classify all items in the library catalog to make it easier to find things on those topics. In this example, you can click on the subject "Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th Century."
3. After you've done that, you'll see a list of subject terms in alphabetical order. Use the search box and add words onto the end of the subject term that signify primary sources. Sources is always a good places to start, but you can also try words such as correspondence or diaries. Since the list is in alphabetical order, you can also scroll through to find subject terms that sound like they'd relate to primary sources.
4. So, in this example, you would add " -- Sources" onto the end of the existing subject term - "Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th Century -- Sources" - and search for that. If you click on the resulting term, you will see a list of all items in Randall Library that have been given that classification - including, for example, this book entitled Eyes on the Prize that probably contains a number of useful primary sources for this topic.