FINDING SOURCES

Like secondary sources such as books and journals, archival record units and manuscript collections are cataloged in bibliographic databases. Manuscript and archival cataloging, however, is generally not to the item level and usually provides only an overview of an entire collection.

Descriptions for archival record units and manuscript groups tend to be lengthier and more detailed than those for published materials. Records include a brief biographical sketch or institutional history, a summary of the materials in the collection, a list of major subjects and persons represented in the collection, as well as the size of the collection. Not all collections are described with the same amount of detail.

The catalog records serve as signposts to a more detailed guide, usually called a finding aid, which provides a more extensive summary of a collection's contents and describes the contents of each box and folder within the collection. Finding aids are sometimes called registers or inventories; whatever their name, they include many subject terms and personal names not indexed in a collection-level record and are essential tools to consult before looking at the original documents.

In looking for sources, whether at Yale or elsewhere, you should anticipate a two-step process in which you first search bibliographic databases and catalogs for personal names, subjects, geographic names, and other keywords. After reviewing the catalog records located by this searching, you would want to read the finding aids for some of those collections. You should not necessarily expect to find a direct reference to one item or folder on your topic in the finding aid.