Help Topics:

• About This Site
• Search
• Working With Results
• Item Options
• Item Information
• Asking for Help

About This Site

This site has been designed to help you explore Duke's unique digitized library and archival materials. It presents many ways to search and browse the collections. Learn more...

Search

The search box conducts a basic keyword search. It searches all fields, including item IDs. You can switch the scope of your search to search more broadly across all of Duke's digital collections, rather than just the current collection.

Keywords

Blank search. Retrieve all the available items by clicking the Search button without specifying a keyword (same effect as clicking 'Browse')

Phrases. Surround multiple keywords in quotes to specify that the terms should be considered as a phrase, rather than individual keywords. Example: "new york"

Wildcards. * represents any number of characters (Example: viol*), ? represents a single character (Example: fr?nc? )

Advanced Search

Click 'Advanced' to specify individual fields to search. The available searchable fields vary by collection. Click (+) to add a field, (-) to remove it. You can combine keywords with specific field searches.

Working With Results

From your search results, you do not have to start your search over again to refine the result set. This site uses "faceted navigation," which displays options on the left-hand side for refining a query one step at a time.

Facets

The options on the side enable you to further narrow your result set

Selection History

You can remove applied filters by clicking the (-)

Views

The default layout is a grid of images, though you can toggle to list view to see more information about each item in the result set.

Item Options

Available options vary for each type of item.

Item Information

Following links in the item information section will search all digital collections for matching items (not just the current collection). For example, from this ad in the Ad*Access collection, clicking Publication: Saturday Evening Post will lead you to all of our digitized items from the Saturday Evening Post, regardless of the digital collection.

PDF

This will export a PDF of the item. PDF is a format that is especially convenient for saving or printing multi-paged items.

Sizes

Click "All Sizes" to access different sizes of the image.

Zoom and pan on the image to get a closer look.

Select a size to access the file directly. Medium is usually the best size for embedding on a blog post or other website.

Printing

It is often most effective to first export a PDF file, then print the PDF.

Asking for Help

The contact information listed under 'Research Help' for any item or collection will be the best point of contact for assistance.