UrFU Library: Lesson 5. Primary and Secondary Source Documents

Lessons

Lesson 5. Primary and Secondary Source Documents

Every document has always a creator (author or compiler). In the course of observation, investigation or other kinds of intellectual activity the author obtains some original data on the object of the research, possibly, conceptualizes the facts and ideas, and fixes all the statements and conclusions in a new document. Such kind of a document can be referred to a primary source document.
It should be noted, that a primary document can be published and unpublished. A not-to-be-published kind of a document can be also distinguished (see the Table below).

Table 1. Kinds of primary documents

Unpublished primary documents are kept in scientific libraries and institutes of the State System of Scientific and Technical Information (GSNTI), archives, museums, and private collections. In particular, UrFU contains some dissertations in the library’s printed collection; a specialized database includes full texts of dissertations defended since 2014 in UrFU Dissertation Council and / or claimed to be defended (lib.urfu.ru/mod/data/view.php?id=1901). Apart from this, UrFU is subscribed to ProQuest Digital Dissertations and Theses international database (http://search.proquest.com).

Not-to-be-published documents are not intended for wide use. These include documents of restricted distribution, containing, for example, state secret, personal documents, etc.

A secondary document is “the result of analytical and synthetic processing of one or several primary sources” [1].

Analytical and synthetic processing is “a document transformation in the process of its analysis and extraction of necessary information as well as evaluating, comparing, synthesizing and presenting information in a form appropriate to the request” for the purpose of a comfortable and economic use [1]. Actually, user gets thus concise information that helps to faster receive an answer to information inquiry.

Secondary processing of a document includes bibliographic description, annotation, abstract, and review [2]. Bibliographic list, index, abstract journal, review, bibliographic file, catalogue, and abstract database consist of descriptions of primary documents and a concise text.

Secondary documents can be illustrated by Abstracts journals series published by All-Russian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (VINITY, www.viniti.ru) and Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INION RAN, inion.ru). Among international resources we should focus on “Annual Reviews Science Collection” (www.annualreviews.org) that contains critical reviews written in English for 46 disciplines.

References:
1. GOST 7.0–99. Informatsionno-bIbliotechnaya deyatelnost’, bibliographiya. Terminy I opredeleniya [StateStandard 7.0–99. System of standards on information, librarianship and publishing. Information and librarian activity, bibliography. Terms and definitions]. — 2000-07-01. — Access mode: for authorized users. – URL: http://sk5-410-lib-te.at.urfu.ru/docs/ (accessed: 18.09.2019).
2. Parshukova G. B. Metodika poiska professional'noi informatsii [Methodology of searching a professional information] : ucheb.-metod. posobiye dlya studentov vuzov / G. B. Parshukova. – Sankt-Peterburg : Professiya Publ., 2006. – 224 p. – ISBN 5-93913111-5.

Material prepared by Asya Kosenko, translated by Natalia Krasnogor

Ural Federal University Library