General Tips

• Collections may be browsed using the left-hand sidebar found on the introductory page.
• Searches may be limited to image collections or text collections only, or to any combination of collections using the advanced search page.
• Omit the word "and" from all keyword searches; the use of "and" is only acceptable in the Advanced Search (i.e., "Burnham and Co.").
• Conduct most searches using keywords rather than exact phrases, especially with personal names, which may occur in both regular and inverted forms.
• Architect, project names and places in all of the images collections are standardized and may not reflect the entries exactly as found in the original source. For example, an original entry of "D.H. Burnham" may be standardized in the database as "Burnham, Daniel H.", or "Chas. Smith house" (original) as "Smith, Charles, Residence" (standardized). However, information within the full-text collections is NOT standardized.
• All residences and businesses with proper names are listed last name first.

Advanced Search

Use of the advanced search page allows for more complex searching, such as Boolean searching, proximity searching, or collection-specific searching. When conducting an advanced search, follow these steps:

Step 1: Select which collections to search using check boxes on bottom half of screen. The default setting is all collections.



Step 2: Select an advanced search type from the 3 selections near the top of the page, 'Across all fields,' 'Selected fields,' or 'By proximity' (see below for further details on search types).



Step 3: Enter search terms in box(es), and search.

Advanced Search Types

1. Across all fields:
• Keyword (use 'All of these words' box).
• Phrase (use 'The exact phrase' box).
• Boolean 'Or' searches (use 'Any of these words' box).
• Boolean 'Not' searches (use 'None of these words' box).
• You may use one or more of these search boxes simultaneously. For example, to search for all instances of "Burnham" that are NOT related to the architect Daniel Burnham, you could enter the term "burnham" in the 'Any of these words' box and the term "daniel" in the 'None of these words' box.





2. Selected fields:
• Allows for the same search options available in 'Across all fields' but with the additional ability to specify the field(s) within a collection(s) which will be searched.
• First, select a delimiter(s) from the first drop-down box (i.e., 'All of the words,' 'The exact phrase,' etc.).
• Second, enter your search term(s) in the box(es).
• Lastly, select a field(s) from the right-hand drop-down list.
• While you can use this type of search for searching across multiple collections, you may find it easier to limit your search to just one collections at a time. Here's why:



• When searching across multiple collections using the 'Selected fields' search feature, the terms which appear in the 'field' drop-down menu will be Dublin Core fields. Dublin Core is a metadata element set which is used here to help associate similar types of data across different collections. Dublin Core elements may be unfamiliar or unintuitive to many users. A list of Dublin Core element definitions may be found here.
  
  



• When searching across a SINGLE collection using the 'Selected fields' search feature, the terms which appear in the 'field' drop-down menu will be specific to that particular collection.
  
  



• After selecting the desired field from the menu, the 'show terms' link to the right of the field can be used to activate an index of all terms found within that selected field. This feature is useful when spelling is uncertain or in selecting from fields using controlled vocabulary such as view type or format.
  
  



3. By Proximity:
• Similar to the Boolean 'Near' search. It allows a user to search for terms based on their location in relation to one another.
• Enter a word in each box and then select the search range (2 to 100 words) from the drop-down menu.
• You may also limit this search to a particular field.

How to Use the Finding Aids and Oral Histories

Finding aids and oral histories are available as downloadable PDF documents. These documents are, by default, viewed and searched through CONTENTdm's in-line Compound Object Viewer. You may also choose to download documents to your desktop and view and search them through Adobe Acrobat. Please note that the in-line Compound Object Viewer is currently not functional in Firefox. When using Firefox, documents will be automatically downloaded to your desktop (as page.pdf or index.pdf). These documents can then be viewed through Adobe Acrobat.

SEARCH AND BROWSE RESULTS:

• Selecting any PDF document from a results or browse page will take you to CONTENTdm's in-line Compound Object Viewer, which features a left-hand menu bar (see example below). You may navigate through the document by selecting from the page list or by using the 'Previous Page' and 'Next Page' links in the left-hand menu bar.
  
  
  
  
• The default settings for PDF search results will return ONLY pages which feature the term that you searched for, and NOT the entire document.
• The default settings for PDF browse results will return ONLY the FIRST page of the document that was requested, and NOT the entire document.
• Pages which contain search term results will be highlighted red.

HOW TO VIEW COMPLETE DOCUMENTS:

• If you would like to view or download an entire PDF document rather than single pages then you can do so by using the 'View' drop-down menu that is located in the sidebar. From the 'View' menu, select 'Complete Print Version', then click on the 'Go' button to the right.
• Full documents will be downloaded to your desktop as 'index.pdf'.

Browser Requirements

This site is best viewed with current versions of Internet Explorer or Safari. The in-line PDF viewer is currently not functional in Firefox.