the photography collection

Searching the Collection

There are two ways to search the database - Search or Browse.

Search

Generally, you will search using keywords. However, more advanced methods, like boolean or wildcard searches can be useful.

If your search finds too many items, you may narrow your search by adding another term. If your search finds no matches in the digital database, you will need to broaden your search by omitting words, using a more general term or trying a synonym.

When you find images you like, it is useful to look at the subject headings in the catalog records for good keywords. These subject headings are included when the image has a significant occurrence of whatever it is - "restaurants," "portraits," "teenagers," etc.

The following searches are possible:

Keyword
Author or Name (Photographer)
Subject Heading
Name Heading
Call Number
Boolean and Wildcard

Keyword

A keyword search matches the word or words that you enter to words found anywhere in the catalog record for the photograph.

Author (Photographer) or Name

An author (photographer) or name search matches words you enter to the name of the photographer or subjects photographed. For example, performing a search on the name, Boos, returns photographs made by Edward H. Boos. To see a partial list of photographers in the database, click here.

Subject Headings

A subject heading search matches the words you enter to subject categories recognized by the Library of Congress. A search on Indians would return photographs with a subject heading containing Indians of North America. To see a list of some of the subjects in the database, click here.

Name Headings

A search of name headings will retrieve photographs associated with either a personal or corporate name. A name search will retrieve photographs made by a particular person or corporate entity (i.e. images by William Henry Jackson or the Rocky Mountain News) or about a named person or corporate entity (i.e. images depicting Buffalo Bill or the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company).

Call Number

If you have saved an important call number, a call number search will take you directly to a photograph. For example, a search on B65 returns the corresponding image and catalog record titled General George A. Custer.

Boolean and Wildcard Searches

A boolean search uses boolean terms to broaden or narrow searches. Boolean words are and, or, and not. For more information on boolean searches, click here.

A wildcard search uses part of a term with an asterisk. For example, to find all items in the database which contain grand, you would enter grand*. Your results might be grandfather, grandmother, grandstand, etc. A search for "bab*" would give results with "baby," "babies," "baby's," and even names, like "Babcock," or "Babbitt."

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Browsing

Browsing will help you locate items that might be missed by direct searches. It is an alternative to searching when a term cannot be exactly matched.

The following browses are possible:

Title Browse

Using the title browse feature, you enter a specific term and then browse the titles that approximate the search term. For example, a search on traffic would return the title Tragedy marred a holiday because the title beginning with the word tragedy in the database is the closest alphabetically to the term to traffic.

Name Browse

The name browse feature allows one to find a particular name and similar names. For example, browsing for Sitting Bull returns a match to Sitting Bull 1834-1890 and Sitting Bull, Louie.

Subject Browse

A subject browse will find the subjects that either match or are alphabetically close to the search term. For example, a search on camping returns Camping Colorado 1890-1910 .

Series Browse

This feature is not supported.

Frequently asked questions about searching

1. Why are there records in the search results pages without thumbnails or pictures?
Many times, the catalog records for the photos are loaded in advance of the scans, resulting in records without images. Usually the delay is no more than a month, so check back.

2. What's a good way to navigate large numbers of page results?
If you want to stop and later resume a search through all of the pages in a large search result, or just want to move around through many results, you can enter numbers in the page number box. If there were 350 pages in your search result, for example, you could put "20" in the box, hit enter, and skip ahead to page 20.

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