Visual sources are drawings, photographs or other non-textual representations of a person, place or event.
Some images ideas:
- Codices (singular, codex) -- The Mexican codices contain images painted by explorers of pre-European Mayan or Aztec art representing religious beliefs and culture along with contemporary text explaining the images.
- Poster (the Mexican Revolution is one event with lots of options)
- Film clip (do a screen capture of one frame)
- Paintings or murals (Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are well-known, but what about someone else?)
- Photographs
- Political cartoon or caricature (look in the newspapers)
- Maps
Here are some places to look, keep in mind, your most comprehensive results use Spanish search terms:
- CSUSM Library Catalog (try keyword search to start in the Books & More tab)
- Google Image Search (do not use the google thumbnail in the results, trace the image links to the original source)
- Internet Archive
- Perry-Casteneda Map Collection at University of Texas
- Library of Congress Photo Collection
- Latin American Collections (Archival)
Sample searches on Benito Juarez, reformist indigenous President of Mexico, (governed before the Mexican Revolution.)
Possible search terms
Keyword: Benito Juarez, Mexico presidents, Mexico history
Library Catalog:
- Type Benito Juarez in the search box as a keyword (the default search).
- If searching for an event or topic, keyword searching is easiest, but try to find the authorized Library of Congress subject heading for more precise results.
- Lots of results and not all will be relevant.
- Switch to a subject search and search Juarez, Benito (if searching a person, last name first name order is best)
- This set of results is much smaller and more precise. I do note many of the books are in Spanish and/or juvenile collection. This should be alright since I am searching for an image.
- In a book's record I look in the format line for words telling me there are images in the work ('illustrations', 'portrait', 'plates', 'ill.')
- Check out the hard copy book or log in to access the ebook through the catalog.
- Scan or copy the image for your assignment and be sure to note the citation information for later.
Internet:
- Google Image search is one option, but you will find a lot of the links are to unauthorized or secondary images (Pintrst, blogspot, etc.) and will not provide any useful citation information.
- Limiting the search with a domain limiter such as site:edu or site:org narrows results to university and museum sites that should give relevant citation information.
- Looking at the images from a Benito Juarez site:edu search, I see a photograph from the Smithsonian Institution (domain is si.edu). There is information on what archival collection this photograph is from as well as a short piece that informs my research further.
- Image found at https://insider.si.edu/2017/04/celebrating-history-behind-cinco-de-mayo/
- Another image I examined (from Brown University) provided a short summary of his life and political activities which will also inform my research.