Finding Aid Help
What is a Finding Aid?
A "finding aid" describes and provides an inventory of primary source materials (manuscripts, papers, pictures, etc.) in a collection at one of the repositories at Indiana University, such as the Lilly Library or the Indiana University Archives.
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 "advanced" searches on up to three terms or phrases joined by the qualifiers AND, OR & NOT. In both the Simple and the Advanced interfaces, there are seven options by which a search can be restricted to particular parts of the encoded finding aid or to specially tagged information. The search options are: anywhere in finding aid, names, places, subjects, call number, collection title, repository. The option selected can affect the results achieved by the search.
- The "Anywhere in Finding Aid" option, which is the default, searches the entire text of the finding aid and is the broadest type of search.
- The "Names" option searches for personal and corporate names that have been explicitly tagged in the finding aid. In Indiana University archival finding aids these terms have been tagged primarily in the "controlled access" section and in lists of significant correspondents included in the Additional Descriptive Data section of some finding aids. Personal names must be searched in the form lastname, firstname. The tagged names represent only those which the processing archivist deemed most significant for a particular collection. Not every name mentioned in a finding aid has been tagged.
- The "Places" option searches only for geographic place names that have been specifically tagged. In Indiana University archival finding aids, geographic place names have been tagged primarily in the "controlled access terms" section. The tagged terms were selected by the cataloger as the most significant terms for the particular collection.
- The "Subjects" option restricts the search to terms that have been specifically tagged as "subject terms" in the "controlled access term" section, as well as all terms tagged as names and places.
- The "Collection number" option provides a quick way to retrieve a specific finding aid if the library collection number is known.
- The "Collection title" restricts the search to terms in the title of the collection or the name of the collection creator.
- The "Repository" option is included in anticipation of the development of a cross-repository search feature in the finding aids database.
- The "Container List" option searches the series or items from the collection that are described in the finding aid.
As noted, most of the searchable name, place and subject terms are included in the "controlled access terms" section of the finding aid. The terms are formed according to Library of Congress Subject Headings, Library of Congress Name Authority File or other thesaurus or authority file. In Indiana University archival finding aids the controlled access terms are assigned by a cataloger who has determined the collection includes significant material relating to the term. The "See Matches" display for searches restricted to "Names" or "Place Names" will thus usually take you to the list of controlled access terms rather than to particular series or file titles in the contents list or sections of the narrative description. A result in the controlled access section simply means that somewhere in the collection there is material relevant to the name, subject or form and genre term.
Advanced Searches
The Advanced search option allows users to search on up to three terms or phrases joined by the expressions AND, OR and NOT. The terms in an advanced 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 television or radio scripts, the search should be television OR radio AND script. The search engine will first search for all finding aids containing either the phrase "television" OR "radio." It will then search the retrieved set for the phrase "script." The revised set will be retrieved, duplicates will be eliminated and the final results displayed.
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 "See Matches" view, a standard 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.
See Matches
Clicking on See Matches 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.
The Standard View
This view presents an outline of the finding aid and the intellectual organization of the contents list in a sidebar navigator. The standard 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, Administrative and User Rights, Biography/History, Collection Scope and Content Note, Controlled Access Terms, Contents List, and Additional Descriptive Information. The Contents List navigator includes links to the major subdivisions of the finding aid, typically subgroups and series or series and subseries. Each of the links in the navigator retrieves only that portion of the finding aid.
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." 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 through the finding aid with the scroll bar or page-up/page-down keys.
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 "See Matches" view, the standard 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.
