How do researchers find personal papers?
Most searchers use library and archive catalogs — print and electronic resources. Huge databases such as NUCMC, the National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections, and NIDS, the National Inventory of Documentary Sources, list collections by personal names. Dozens of other print and online sources will guide researchers to papers. The cost and complexity of finding and using these sources to productive end, however, can be overwhelming. One certainty about personal papers is the unpredictability of where they will be found. They can and do show up anywhere, often having got there via extraordinary routes and circumstances. Researchers in personal papers often rely on telephone calls and letters to families and friends of their subjects to discover where they might begin their search.
