Have 20th Century library books now become "primary source" documents?
Due to rampant false "post truth" , primary source material needs to be consulted to obtain accurate factual knowledge.
Actual books have suddenly become the new primary source evidence to counteract internet misinformation. Particularly history.
No. There are primary sources and secondary sources and reliable sources and unreliable sources. A true primary source is still a first hand account or a document created during the time in question when it comes to history. That being said, not all sources are created equal. I've had many school assignments that asked me to specifically find books or journal articles for two reasons. A) Because the professor wanted to make sure we knew how to use a library (How sad is that?! I love libraries!) B) Because those sources are more likely to be peer reviewed and are usually more accurate.
When writing a piece it's important to use a wide variety of sources. This will allow the writer to see the topic from different angles and it allows the writer to obtain some degree of certainty about whether or not the facts he/she is gleaning are accurate. Primary sources should be quoted whereever possible. Reliable secondary sources should be used to fill in the gaps and to read different analices of whatever is being studied. Unreliable sources should be passed over so their inaccuracies aren't perpetuated.
A primary source is a firsthand account, regardless of media.
Not every library book contains firsthand information, and not every firsthand account is written in a book. Films, photos, videos, letters, and even blog posts can be considered primary sources.
And trust me, since I live in Texas, the land of revisionist history: not every history book in the library is accurate, or based on firsthand accounts. Some of them are just as crazy as the misinformation online.
by sid_candid 15 years ago
Is Hubpages your primary source of income. If yes what do you intend to do after the recent Google smack down. If no what is your primary source of online income and how is it doing after the Google updates.
by Paula 13 years ago
When doing genealogy, how do you deal with differing facts?When trying to stay factual, it can be difficult when records give varying information. For instance, the census results can even differ! Birth certificates and those facts can differ from other official records. I didn't...
by Melody Collins 13 years ago
Can you cite Wikipedia in a college paper?My professor told us to cite trusted sources only. Do you think it is a bad idea to cite Wikipedia in a college paper?
by Ben Grimm 17 years ago
When you click on "View Stats" for a hub, you'll see the message "Top Traffic Sources - (not all views have a discernable source)"Why exactly is this? Don't most analytics programs show the source? Also, why doesn't it ever show direct traffic (like people just...
by Melanie Palen Shebel 14 years ago
Let's say you see an article on someone's blog and website and they've got good information, but their entire article is extremely poorly structured, poorly worded, and just a gloppy mess.You could easily take the information they present and present it in a totally new way essentially entirely...
by PrettyPanther 9 years ago
The Trump campaign is a mess. Fundraising for both Trump and the RNC is so bad, the RNC sent out a last-minute plea to Sheldon Adelson to give $6 million just so they could fund the convention in a few days. The usual suspects who would normally jump at a chance to speak at a political...
Copyright © 2026 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2026 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show Details| Necessary | |
|---|---|
| HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
| Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
| Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
| Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
| HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
| HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
| Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
| Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
| Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
| Features | |
|---|---|
| Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
| Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
| Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
| Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
| Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
| Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
| Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
| Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
| Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
| Marketing | |
|---|---|
| Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
| Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
| Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
| Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
| Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
| Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
| Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
| Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |


