Guide to Searching the Archive Collections
What are archives?
Archives, or archival collections, are permanently valuable records – such as letters, photographs, manuscripts, reports, and audiovisual materials – of people, businesses, and the government. The archives housed at the Center for Creative Photography are kept because they offer continuing value and unlimited research potential to future users. These materials are documentary evidence of past events, and hold the facts we use to interpret and understand history.
What are finding aids?
Finding aids are collection guides that provide information about the creation, historical context, and contents of primary source materials. Archivists create finding aids to describe the organization, origin, extent, contents, dates, topics, and creators of the records, in brief summaries or detailed inventories. Finding aids enable users to discover materials, decide what they want to explore in person, and accurately request materials for use.
Finding aid search tips
Basic searching:
- To begin a search, use the search bar on the Center for Creative Photography Archives page.
- You can return to the home page at any time by selecting the “Home” tab.
Searches are not case sensitive. - Unless you know the name of the collection or item you are looking for, it is best to start with a search set to “search all record types” by “keyword”, then narrow down your search results from the search results page.
- If you are looking for something within a particular archive, navigate to that collection, and then enter search terms into the “Search Collection” box located at the top right of the archive’s main page.
Advanced searching:
Operator
Example
Result
OR
Nancy Newhall OR Beaumont Newhall
Must contain any word; broadens your search to include multiple search terms.
AND
Louise Dahl-Wolfe AND color
Must contain all words; to find materials that contain all of your search terms.
NOT
Noskowiak NOT Weston
Provides results that do not contain the specific word.
""
"Water in the West"
Produces results containing exact phrases of two or more words by including quotation marks.
~
"women photography"~3
Searches terms within a specified number of words of another. Will return results where the term “photography” occurs within 3 words of the term “women”
?
wom?n
Single character wildcard. Replaces a single letter in a search term. Wom?n will return both “woman” and “women”. May not be used as the first character of a word.
*
Margaret* Mather
Multiple character wildcard. Replaces any number of letters at the end of a search term. Margaret* will return “Margaret” and “Margareth”. May not be used as the first character of a word.
-
"Ansel Adams" -publishing rights trust
Excludes a word or term from your search. For example, searching “Ansel Adams” -publishing rights trust will find materials with the phrase “Ansel Adams” but will not include the words “publishing rights trust”.
Example
Result
OR
Nancy Newhall OR Beaumont Newhall
Must contain any word; broadens your search to include multiple search terms.
AND
Louise Dahl-Wolfe AND color
Must contain all words; to find materials that contain all of your search terms.
NOT
Noskowiak NOT Weston
Provides results that do not contain the specific word.
""
"Water in the West"
Produces results containing exact phrases of two or more words by including quotation marks.
~
"women photography"~3
Searches terms within a specified number of words of another. Will return results where the term “photography” occurs within 3 words of the term “women”
?
wom?n
Single character wildcard. Replaces a single letter in a search term. Wom?n will return both “woman” and “women”. May not be used as the first character of a word.
*
Margaret* Mather
Multiple character wildcard. Replaces any number of letters at the end of a search term. Margaret* will return “Margaret” and “Margareth”. May not be used as the first character of a word.
-
"Ansel Adams" -publishing rights trust
Excludes a word or term from your search. For example, searching “Ansel Adams” -publishing rights trust will find materials with the phrase “Ansel Adams” but will not include the words “publishing rights trust”.
Narrowing your results:
- To use a wildcard in combination with another search term (e.g. wom?n photographers), use the + icon to create another row and enter each search term in a separate row.
- Create advanced searches by clicking the + button to add a new line to your search.
- Once you’ve initiated a search and are on the search results page, you can use the filter pane on the right side of the page to further limit and customize results.
- You may also use the search bar at the top of the filter pane to create additional searches within the search results.