Using FRANCIS and Worlcat to find Published Primary Sources

FRANCIS, the library catalog is an inventory of all sources available in the Williams College Libraries

WorldCat is a catalog of library catalogs in the U.S. and around the world. It is the recommended catalog to search for Primary Sources, however, not all materials in Worldcat are accessible (some sources do not circulate and can't be lent to us). Materials available at Williams are marked Williams in Worldcat icon. For all other materials, click on the Find Text icon button.

Search strategies for FRANCIS and Worldcat:

Memoirs, speeches, writings,or correspondence
Do an author search for the name (last name first) of the person
e.g.: King, Martin Luther Jr

For Autobiographical material
Do a subject search for personal narratives and your topic as keyword
e.g. personal narratives and nuremberg

For Papers of an organization, political party, agency, or association
Search by author using the name of the party, agency or organization.
e.g National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

For interviews
Do a subject search for interviews and your topic
e.g. interviews and Vietnam If you don't find anything, keep search for interviews as a subject but add your topic as a keyword (instead of a subject).

For documentaries
Use the subjects documentary films or biographical films and limit to your topic
e.g. documentary films and iraq

For ethnographic documents
Search for the subject ethnology-field work and limit to your topic

For government publications
In Worldcat: Search for your topic and add government as a Material Type.

For catalogs of exhibitions
Search for the museum as an author and add the words exhibition or catalogue as a keyword

For collections of primary sources
Search for subject archival resources and your topic.

Beyond FRANCIS and the Williams Collections

NExpress: from FRANCIS, you can repeat your search in the NExpress catalog and request materials from our partner libraries (Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, North Eastearn and Wellesley).

BLC Virtual Catalog: To request materials from the Boston Consortium Libraries. Does not include a subject search so you must search for a known item either by title or by author.

It is also helpful to search the catalogs of large research institutions to see what is available and then request materials through Interlibrary Loan. Here are some of the libraries recommended by Professor Valiani: