Accessing the American Memory collection: Searching

By Melissa Thibault

Take a look at the second installment in the American Memory: North Carolina educator's guide and find out how to search the collections with success. You'll learn all kinds of tricks and techniques, and even explore the Library of Congress's latest search tool.

Libraries versus the Web

Searching in a library or archive collection is very different from searching the internet. The search tool, in this case, an online public access catalog, is created by professionals who follow strict rules for describing each book or item. Cataloging requires completing a form with set fields and assigning subjects from a finite list of terms. So, unlike the Internet search that is more of a full-text search, when you search the catalog you are searching just the catalog record — not the text of an entire resource.

This kind of searching requires a more thoughtful approach and more preparation but there are benefits. The items or “hits” returned from a well-crafted search in a catalog are more likely to be an exact match, not just related to the topic. The standard searchable content of a catalog record includes the name of the author or creator, the title of the work, and the subject of the work. So, if your search term appears in these fields you will have no difficulty finding what you need.

Natural language, a reasonable approach to searching the Internet or a full text database, is less likely to be in the catalog record so if you try a natural language search in an expert system like the online public access catalog, you will not get as many hits. Additionally, the historical nature of the American Memory collection requires careful consideration of search terms that may now be obsolete but that were used commonly at the time the materials were created like filling station for gas station. Even major subject headings change with time; political pressures and expressed preferences have changed subject headings from colored people to African American and Native American to American Indian.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you are not searching the full text of the item, only the catalog record.

Searching American Memory

From the home page of American Memory you can search across the many different primary source collections by entering a term in the search box at the top right. The search returns a list of items and for each item, the collection in which it is found. If you prefer pictures to text, you may select the gallery view and you will see thumbnail images of the materials as well as the title. The collection the item is found in is not noted in the gallery search result.

The default site search in the American Memory collection looks for all of the terms in your search, so each word must appear in the record for the record to show up. The search includes variants (plurals, words derived from the word) as well.

There are a number of things you can do to modify your search so you get what you need.

Add Words: More words return a more specific result. For example, a search for the term war returns over 5000 hits, as does a search for war North Carolina. If you search war North Carolina Ironclad you get 58 relevant results.

Phrase Search: put the words in the order they are most likely to be used so the most relevant results appear at the top of the list. For example, search Confederate army camp instead of army camp Confederate and Scottish Irish immigrant instead of immigrant Scottish Irish.

Synonyms: Try a synonym to make your search broader or more specific. Individual collections have a list of subject headings that you may browse.

Authority Records: If the cataloging of resources really interests you, you may search the Library of Congress authorities to find out the exact authorized subject headings and related references. (If you actually do this, consider a career in librarianship!)

For additional searching directions visit the American Memory search help page. You may also try the Library of Congress Advanced Search, which has its own help page.

Searching specific collections

For best results use the search within individual collections. Since each collection has a unique theme, source, or format, the search options within each collection are very specific to that content. The After the Day of Infamy collection includes a standard search that allows you not only to control word variants but also to select the Boolean options of any words, all words, or exact phrase. The Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century search has a full text search option because items in that collection have been completely transcribed and made available in a full-text version. Some individual collections allow you to broaden your search to related collections. The search within America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894–1915 includes the option of searching just that collection or all early motion picture collections.

Searching improvements

Recently the Library of Congress site introduced a new search tool. This tool is still being tested but it offers some promising improvement to access. It provides access to a variety of different materials from the Library of Congress’s vast collection. One search returns entries for relevant primary sources from American Memory, records for books held in the library collection, and even records of websites linked from the Library of Congress website. This may be a good tool to try if you want to find more resources and not limit your search to primary sources.

For example, if you search for war North Carolina, you will get a wide range of materials including:

  • Senate Executive Journal entries from 1808 found in the American Memory collection
  • Record for a book from the library collection called Our Heroes, 1861–1865: Sketches of Civil War Soldiers with Connections to North Carolina
  • Record of legislation including “H.R. 4200 (PP) National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005”
  • Record of an annual North Carolina reenactment event, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse from the North Carolina Local Legacies portion of the website

Keep an eye on this new search tool—it might just come in handy!