Digital Collections Help

Searching
Advanced Search
Viewing Search Results
Viewing an Object
Viewing A Text
Tools

NEW! -- Digital Collections Quick Start Guides, organized by individual topics and available in one file together as a PDF (4.5 Mb), or check out the individual guides (PDF):

Authentication: Many items in the Digital Collections are restricted to the UVa community - users must be on Grounds, or authenticated through UVa Anywhere.

Recommended Minimum Browser Versions: (Some features may not work on other browsers or versions)

Windows XP or 2000: Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape 7.2, Mozilla 1.7, or Firefox 1.0.
Macintosh OS X: Firefox 1.5

Basic Cross-Collection Catalog Search

This is not a full-text search -- it searches only the descriptive metadata, not the complete texts.
Enter a single word or an exact phrase into the search box.
Do not enter phrases in quotation marks.
Ignore all punctuation, e.g., "Carr's" will be searched as "Carrs".
The search is not case sensitive; proper upper and lower case are not necessary.
The default search type is right truncation. A search for "hen" will return hits that include "hen" "Henrietta" and "Henry" in the indexed metadata fields.
To turn off right truncation, type a period at the end of the search term. (ex. "hen.") This will return only those records with an exact match of the search term in the indexed metadata fields.

Advanced Cross-Collection Catalog Search

This is not a full-text search -- it searches only the descriptive metadata, not the complete texts.
Enter a single word or an exact phrase into the search box.
Do not enter phrases in quotation marks.
Ignore all punctuation, e.g., "Carr's" will be searched as "Carrs".
The search is not case sensitive; proper upper and lower case are not necessary.
The default search type is right truncation. A search for "hen" will return hits that include "hen" "Henrietta" and "Henry" in the indexed metadata fields.
To turn off right truncation, type a period at the end of the search term. (ex. "hen.") This will return only those records with an exact match of the search term in the indexed metadata fields.
Use the default "anywhere" to search across all categories of data, or use the drop-down box to select a specific data category to search. Not all categories of data exist for all types of types of collections (i.e., style is unlikely to apply to texts or finding aids). For more targeted, full-text searches use the simple or advanced search forms for text collections, image collections, or finding aids. Limit the search by one of the following:
- title: The actual title of the resource, including any alternate titles.
- name: The name(s) of individuals or organizations that bear some important relationship to the resource, i.e. author, editor, architect, museum.
- subject: Topic of the resource or words related to significant associations of people, events, or other contextual information.
- culture: A culture of origin or context for the resource, i.e., French, Native American.
- description: Descriptive text, notes, remarks, or comments about the resource.
- date created or changed: Dates associated with the creation of the resource, i.e. the publication date of a book or the creation date of a sculpture. You may enter four digit dates or a string, i.e. 8th century.
- date coverage: Dates represented by the resource, i.e. a painting depicting an 8th century event or a book about 18th century history. You may enter four digit dates or a string, i.e. 8th century.
- place created or housed: A physical location associated with the resource, i.e. the place of publication of a book, the location of a building, the repository housing a special collection.
- place coverage: A physical location represented by the resource, i.e. the representation of Athens within a painting, or a book about Virginia.
- physical description: The physical dimensions of the resource or the medium, i.e. bronze, oil, watercolor.
- style: A style or period associated with the resource, i.e. Baroque, Art Deco
You may also combine up to three searches by selecting the functions "and" (must include) or "or" (either/or) to further broaden or narrow your query.
It is not necessary use to all the boxes.

Viewing Search Results

Results are displayed in a single set sorted by format (text, page book, image, finding aid), and sorted by title within each format category. The format categories are identified by icons:

-- A fully transcribed text that may also include page images.
-- A text that includes page images only and no transcription.
-- An image.
-- A finding aid, describing an archival collection.

Viewing an Object

Clicking on the title of the object in the results set will take you directly to a view of the object.

Viewing a Text

After finding a text through a search, you will either see the default view of a text -- the "front matter" of the text, e.g., the pages before the body of the text -- or a section of the text where a match to your search term is located. Some texts do not have transcriptions, only page images. For those texts, the default view begins with an image of the cover or fist page of the volume.

To read a section of text when there is a transcription, use the scroll bar at the right. To move between sections of the text, mouse over the "go to" button to move through next or previous sections, or mouse over the "table of contents" button to select a specific section or chapter to read. You may also click on the "entire work" button to view the entire volume. This display may be slow to load, depending upon the size of the volume.

To save a reference to the entire text in Collectus, click on the "add to collection" button. This will start Collectus, if not already started and create a text icon that shows the title and author of the work you have elected to add to your collection.

For books with transcriptions and page images, thumbnail images to the right of the screen link to page images that can be read on screen. Use the "go to" button to navigate through page images one at a time, or click on the "view page images" button to see a grid of twenty page images at a time. Use the "go to" button to navigate through sets of page images.

For books with page images only, use the "go to" button to navigate through page images one at a time, or click on the "view page images" button to see a grid of twenty page images at a time. Use the "go to" button to navigate through sets of page images.

Tools & Actions Menu for Working with Images

When you are looking at images or page images retrieved through a search, each image includes a "Tools & Actions" menu. There are four options available under that menu:

"Get Information" - View the full information about the image, and view that image and any related images. Images on the Full Information screen also include the Tools and Actions menu.
"Open in ImageViewer" - Open the image in a new window that allows a user to resize an image, change the brightness settings to make an image brighter or darker, change the contrast settings to change the degree of difference between the lightest and darkest elements of the image, and to rotate the image. Click on the image to view the Toolbar. Click again to close the Toolbar.

For ImageViewer troubleshooting, please see the Collectus page.
"Add to Collection" - Add the image to a personal collection using the UVa Library's Collectus. Collectus allows a user to view image files that are stored in the digital library and, if desired, to collect references to those files into either an xml or an html file that is stored locally on the user's hard drive, or on a floppy disk. The two parts of the object collector are the Object Collection Window and the ImageViewer (also available from the search results).

The Object Collection Window allows a user to select images from a Search Results or Browse screen and save references to them as a group. The references to these images can be saved to the user's local hard drive, to a floppy drive, or to a mapped network location in an xml file, which can be reopened in Collectus to retrieve the user's saved search results set. The references to these images may also be used to create an HTML web page that is saved to the user's local hard drive, to a floppy drive, or to a mapped network location.

The first time you click on this button, Collectus will be installed onto your computer, and will be automatically updated upon later uses. For Windows, the application will install automatically. For the Macintosh, users will need to double click on the downloaded file (Collector.jnlp) to complete the installation.

NOTE: The Image Viewer and Collectus require that your computer be configured to use Java 2. The ImageViewer will not work with the online Digital Collections and you cannot add images into personal collections using Collectus without the proper Java and browser configuration.
- Windows:
  - Windows XP or Windows 2000 operating system.
  - Java 2, version J2SE 1.4.2 (aka JRE 1.4.2) OR LATER, including Java Web Start (Download and run the free installer from Sun at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html -- Click on "Download J2SE JRE."). If your system has earlier versions of Java installed, any earlier versions must be uninstalled and the machine rebooted first before a new installation can take place).
- Macintosh:
  - Mac OSX 10.4.4 has proven the be the most reliable in supporting the Digital Collections tools.
  - Java 2, version J2SE 1.4.2 (aka JRE 1.4.2) is required. To run this version of Java, OS X 10.3.4 or later is required. According to Apple, All Macintoshes with OS X 10.3.4 or later come with Java 2, version J2SE 1.4.2 (aka JRE 1.4.2) already installed. For improved compatibility, Apple has released their own updaters/installers with varying names for varying versions of the OS.
  - If you have OS X 10.3.4 or later and have NO Java versions on your Macintosh:
    - Download and run the free updater/installer for Java 2, version J2SE 1.4.1 (aka JRE 1.4.1) from Apple at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120274
  - If you have OS X version 10.3.4 or later and need to UPDATE your Java version to the REQUIRED Java 2, version J2SE 1.4.2 (aka JRE 1.4.2), including Java Web Start:
    - Download and run the free updater/installer from Apple at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/javaupdate142.html.
  - If you have OS X 10.3.9, Apple has reported that there may be issues with Java that require an update.
    - Download and run the free updater/installer from Apple at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/javaupdateformacosx1039.html
  - If you have OS X version 10.4 ("Tiger") or higher and want to ensure that you are running the correct version of Java:
    - Java 2, version J2SE 1.4.2 (aka JRE 1.4.2), including Java Web Start (Download and run the free updater/installer from Apple at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/java131and142release2.html).
      - NOTE: For OS X version 10.4 ("Tiger"), Java 2, version J2SE 5.0 release 1 is available at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/java2se50release1.htm. This version is NOT required for use of the Digital Library.
For Collector Tool troubleshooting, please see the Collectus page.
"Download Image" - This allows you to download a screen-sized version of the image to your computer. A dialog box will open to allow you to select a location to save the image. You may name your downloaded files whatever you wish, but be sure to include the extension, such as "lewis&clark_toc.gif" or "catlin_portrait.jpg." Many items in the Digital Collections are restricted to the UVa community - users must be on Grounds, or authenticated through UVa Anywhere to download images. Not all images support downloading, as required by some licenses to the University.

University of Virginia Library: Digital Collections