contributed by Lizette Royer Barton.
Our online repository recently got a face lift. Did you notice?
And since many of us are cooped up at home due to COVID-19 we might as well do some searching together in our pj’s. Feel free to grab a cold beer and some cheez-itz (yes, I am very high brow) and join me for some archival search strategies!
Here is the new homepage.
A couple things right off the bat. Some “housekeeping items” if you will.
The platform we use for our repository is shared by other units on campus. You’ll notice a list of UA departments across the top – UA DigColl Home, Cummings Center (Hey! That’s us!), Archival Services (The University Archives. NOT us!), and University Libraries.
And since that is the case, an ADVANCED SEARCH is your friend. Go ahead. Click on your new friend, Advanced Search.
Advanced searching. Woohoo! Treat yourself to handful of cheez-itz.
In the image below you can see that each collection in the repository is “clicked” and here is where you want to start unclicking the collections you do NOT want to search. The collections inside the red square are all CCHP collections, aka collections housed in the Archives of the History of American Psychology.
The collections inside this red box are housed within the Institute for Human Science and Culture (IHSC). The IHSC is the “educational arm” of the Cummings Center and is housed on the third and fourth floors of the Center. The Campbell Postcards and the Forman Collection of Bags are both used onsite by students in our Museums & Archives Certificate Program for real hands on experience in museum exhibition. Very cool.
The “What Makes Us Human” database is fun. The final exhibit of the National Museum of Psychology asks visitors to answer the question, “What makes us human?” Visitors write down their answers and leave them for others to enjoy. Then we scan them and upload them here for everyone to enjoy. My very favorite answer of all time is “pants.”
And finally, PsycCRITIQUES. We host PsycCRITIQUES (virtually) and you can access over 43,000 articles and reviews published in PsycCRITIQUES. Word to the wise though: ALWAYS unclick this unless you want to search there specifically because no matter what search term you use it’s likely you’ll get hits in PsycCRITIQUES.
The bread and butter of the CCHP is the manuscript collections aka the personal papers of psychologists and the organizational records of Psychological Organizations. The Finding Aids database is what you want if you’re interested in manuscript collections.
Be sure only the finding aids collection is clicked and then hit save.
Then at the bottom of the page you can further narrow your search. I just did a blog about Anne Anastasi. You could search across “all fields” for Anastasi which will provide results for any time her name pops up in any manuscript collection. Or, if you’re interested in her manuscript papers specifically click “title” since the name of the psychologist is in the title, and type in “Anastasi.”
Searching across all the manuscript collections for “Anastasi” bring back 16 hits. And check out some new cool information that comes up with your search in this new interface.
All the collections pop up alphabetically on the right and you can scroll through them. And on the left you can see the titles and creators of collections. Sometimes the creator and title of a collection are the same but not always. Anyway, you can see right away what collections are included in the search and you can click now or scroll through the finding aids on the right.
One last thing about finding aids. Say you’ve decided to scroll through the Anne Anastasi finding aid so you click her name from the list.
In the old contentDM interface you could immeditaly start scrolling through the finding aid but now you have to click that icon with the arrows up on the right hand side. That will open the finding aid in a new window and make it searchable.
You can either enter something specific in that search bar or you can scroll through the finding aid waiting for something to pop out at you.
Start browsing. Have some fun. Take the first steps of a new research project. Take notes (collection name, box number, folder number) and get back to us once the Archives opens up again.
In the meantime, back to my beer and cheez-itz.