1. Use the Search OAC box to search through all the collections and items in the site.
2. The navigation bar is located at the top of every page.
3. By Title from A to Z lets you browse collection listings by title within a single letter or number.
4. By Institution lets you select a particular institution to see all the collections housed at that institution and connect to their contact information.
5. Browse Map takes you to the Map page to locate an institution on the map, and to find directions and contact information.
6. Need to Find a Digital Image? If you are looking for digitized images or text, consider using our Calisphere site instead.
7. The footer bar is located at the bottom of every page, with references to our terms of use, privacy statement, and the following additional links:
The Search OAC box is available at the top right-hand corner of every page on the website. Enter one or more search term to search through all the collections and items in the site, regardless of which page you are on.
Search Options
Enter the keywords you would like to search on. A search for two or more words will result in
records containing all of the words (e.g., cat dog will get you results where both cat and dog appear).
Our search does not support Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT). However, entering a multiple keyword search will work like Boolean AND. Results will be returned only when ALL of the keywords appear. For example: sierra mining will retrieve items with both sierra and mining.
back to top1. Select Contributing Institutions from the top navigation bar to view and scroll through an A-Z list of all the OAC contributing institutions.
2. Select a letter from A to Z to jump to that page on the contributing institutions list.
3. Browse Map takes you to the Map page to locate an institution on the map, and to find directions and contact information.
back to top1. Select Collection Guides from the top navigation bar to view an A-Z list of all the collections available. In most cases, the A-Z is sorted by the last name (e.g., Goodman, John B. Collection).
2. Use the Auto-complete option to find a particular collection
3. Select any letters from A to Z to jump to the collections for that letter.
4. Select Show collection descriptions or Hide collection descriptions to see or hide brief descriptions of the collections on that page.
5. Show records to toggle between viewing all collection records, only MARC records or only EAD-encoded records.
back to topCollection guides (also called "finding aids") describe the items in a collection and how they were gathered or created. They also identify the collection's location, and may provide additional information, including detailed descriptions, chronologies, and biographies.
1. This area provides the collection title, collection number, a link to contact information for the collection, and information about whether items in this collection are available online.
2. View entire collection guide lets you view a printable version of the full collection guide, with options to print/save as a PDF document.
3. Search this collection lets you search for any item in this collection guide, or for online items only, where available. Click radio buttons to change search. (If there are no online items for a collection guide, this option is grayed out.)
4. The collection guide Table of contents always remains on the right-hand side of the screen. You can easily navigate through the collection guide by clicking the name of the section you want in the Table of Contents. The number of search hits (i.e., the number of times the term you searched on appears in the collection guide) will appear in yellow highlight. When you click the yellow hits link, you will be taken directly to the results for your search term in that section.
5. The left-hand side of the screen displays the contents of the entire collection guide. Any search hits will appear in yellow highlight, and you can navigate between them by clicking the arrows on either side of the terms.
back to topSearch results are categorized in two tabs: Collections and Items
1. The Collections tab displays a list of collections that match the search terms entered (gold rush mining). In this case, 63 collections matched the search terms.
2. Each result lists the title of the collection. Click the title to view the collection guide. The search results also lists the contributing institution (the institution that houses that collection) and a short description of the collection. Click "read more" to see more of the description.
3. Limit to: There are three ways to narrow search results:
The option you choose will display in the Refine search results box, and the search results will change. To remove that option and return to original results, clicking the "X" next to that choice.
1. The Items tab displays a list of items that match the search terms by topic or title. In this case, 13 items matched the search term tuna.
2. There are three types of Items:
3. Limit to: There are three ways to narrow search results:
The option you choose will display in the Refine search results box, and the search results will change. To remove that option and return to your original results, click the "X" next to that choice.
back to topLocate a contributing institution by using the Maps feature. You can use the click and zoom capability. There are four ways to find an institution using this feature.
1. Click a red marker to choose an institution. A bubble provides the institution’s name and address. You can enter your address to get driving directions. You can also click “Browse the collection” to get a list of all collections housed at that institution
2. Choose an institution from the alphabetical list of Contributing Institutions. When you select the name of the institution, a bubble provides the name and address. You can enter your address to get driving directions. You can also click "Browse the collection" to get a list of all the collections housed at that institution
3. Use the pull-down menu to choose a city (view all institutions in that city) or choose a campus (view all the institutions at a particular campus).
back to topQuestions related to a collection or its contents--including requests for duplication, permissions, or more information--must be directed to the institution that contributed the materials or the guide. The OAC does not own, store, or house any of the materials described in the collection guides, nor any of the digital materials appearing on this site.
The name of the contributing institution, as well as a link to its website, is provided on every collection guide and digital item (image or text). The following screenshots provide examples of where to find this information for the various types of materials on the OAC:
Collection Guides
The red arrows indicate the locations of contributing institution information on collection guides.
Items
For some images and texts, to find the contributing institution website, you must click the "more information about this image" link. Some images and texts are formatted differently. If you cannot locate the contributor information for a particular object, try returning to the collection guide (see above for more information).