Rare Book & Manuscript Library, U. of Penn: Finding Aids
   simple search  | boolean search  | help  | home  
 

Finding Aid Help Page
| Constructing Searches | Boolean Searches | The Search Results Screen |
| Keywords in Context View | Outline View | Full Text View | Navigating | Library Catalog

 

Constructing Searches

The search screens include options which allow the user to construct searches that are as broad or precise as necessary. It is possible to do "simple" searches on a single term or phrase and "Boolean" searches on up to three terms or phrases joined by the qualifiers AND, OR & NOT.

[Top]

 

Boolean Searches

The Boolean search option allows users to search on up to three terms or phrases joined by the expressions AND, OR and NOT. The terms in a boolean search are entered into separate text boxes and are operated on from left to right. This means some care must be taken in formulating the search. For example, if you wanted to find collections with information about the cities of Ann Arbor or Chelsea during the civil war, the search should be Ann Arbor OR Chelsea AND civil War. The search engine will first search for all finding aids containing either the phrase "Ann Arbor" OR "Chelsea". It will then search the retrieved set for the phrase "civil war." The revised set will be retrieved, duplicates will be eliminated and the final results displayed.

[Top]

 

 

Understanding Search Results

The results of a search are presented in several steps and give the user options for viewing the finding aid: a search results screen, a "keywords in context" view, an outline view, and a full text view. The system delivers portions or particular views of the finding aid as requested, rather than forcing the user to download the entire document.

The Search Results Screen

The initial results of a search will be presented as a list of all collections in which the search term(s) was found. The total number of collections retrieved is displayed at the top of the page. For large sets, results are displayed 25 at a time. The results list is arranged alphabetically by the name of the collection creator. The result for each collection retrieved includes the collection title and date span, collection creator, size of the collection, an abstract of the collection content, and the size of the on-line finding aid expressed in bytes.

Each result includes three links to different views of the finding aid: keyword in context, outline, and full text.

[Top]

 

The Keywords in Context View

Clicking on the keywords in context link for a collection displays all of the found search terms in an excerpt of the sentence or phrase in which the term is contained. This may help the user determine the relevance of the particular occurrence of the search term The search term is in bold and higher levels of the finding aid structure are hyperlinks, allowing the user to unfold portions of the finding aid to view the larger context in which the term is contained.

[Top]

 

The Outline View

This view presents an outline of the finding aid and the intellectual organization of the contents list in a sidebar navigator. The outline view is the most suitable view for browsing through a finding aid. The sidebar includes links to the main sections of the finding aid: Summary Information, Access and Use Information, Biography/History, Collection Scope and Content Note, Access Terms, Container List, and Additional Descriptive Information. The Contents List navigator includes links to the major subdivisions of the contents list, typically subgroups and series or series and subseries. Each of the links in the navigator initiates a new query and retrieves only that portion of the finding aid.

[Top]

 

The Full Text View

This view retrieves the full text of the finding aid as a single document without the sidebar navigator. It includes a more formally formatted title page and the entire list of "Controlled Access Terms" will be displayed. For some collections this can run to a hundred or more entries. There are no internal navigation tools in the full text view. You must move though the finding aid with the scroll bar or page-up/page-down keys.

 [Top]

 

Navigating the Finding Aids

Each of the finding aid screens or views contains a set of navigation links at the top of each screen. As appropriate, there will be links to the search screen pages, the search results page, the keywords in context view, the outline view, and the full document text view. The sidebar navigator provides internal navigation within a finding aid. It lists the major sections of the finding aid and under the Contents List section provides links to the individual subgroups, series, and subseries. An up-arrow at the bottom of each page links to the top of the page.

[Top]

 

Searching for Manuscript Collections in the Library Catalog

All of the fully processed manuscript collections held by the Annenberg Rare Book & Manuscript Library have been cataloged, and collection-level records can be found in both Franklin (Penn Library's catalog) and RLG Archival Resources. In addition, for many of these processed collections, the files of all significant correspondents have been cataloged separately. This means that it is possible to search in Franklin or RLG Archival Resources for correspondents within manuscript collections.

Working from the Basic Search page in Franklin, a researcher should first select "manuscripts" from "Quick Links" (Box 3), and then enter as AUTHOR a personal or corporate name in Box 1. Search results will indicate all manuscript collections in which the entered name is either the subject of the collection itself or in which the individual or corporation has a correspondence file.

[Top]

 

For more information,
please contact:
shawcros@pobox.upenn.edu