Note:   On the left of the Basic Search screen are Related Subject Headings which you can click on to search.  You can also view Topic Trees of Narrower and Related Terms to search.

Person Search

1.  Click on the “Person” icon.
2. Enter the person’s name to the right of “name”.
3. Below this you can select criteria to limit your search such as Profession, Nationality, etc.
4. Click on the "Search" button
5. Chose from a possible list of people who are closely matched with your criteria.
6. Results will be grouped into the following tabs: Reference Materials, Periodicals (full-text articles and journal citations), Primary Sources, and Maps & Images.
7. To see more documents that correspond to your search parameters within a tab, click on the brown right-pointing triangle.

Note:   You can revise your search or mark, update or view your marked list.   You can also Identify a Person using the person’s profession, nationality, birth year, death year, birth place or gender.

Subject Search

1. Click on the “Subject” icon.
2. Enter the subject in the Subject Search box.
3. When you select Search, a list of subject terms most closely matching your criteria will appear.
a. If you see a subject term that you feel describes what you are looking for, click on the term to retrieve a list of documents that have been indexed to that subject term.
b. If you don't see a subject term that matches exactly what you are looking for, click on the View Topic Tree link of the term that most closely matches. This will take you to a new screen that places that term in the context of broader, narrower, and/or related terms.
c. Finally, clicking on See links leads to another subject guide page with entries for the related subject.

4. Once you click on a Subject term, the Subject Search will return results grouped into the following tabs: Reference Materials, Periodicals (full-text and journal citations), Primary Sources, and Maps & Images.
5. To see more documents that correspond to your search parameters within a tab, click on the brown right-pointing triangle.

Advanced Search

1. Enter search term(s).
2. Select index type: Keyword, Subject, Full-text, Person, Title/Headline, Author, and Source.
3. Indicate choice of Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT).
4. Go on to the next line and input the next search term.
5. Select the index type and Boolean operators, and so on.
6. Limit the search (optional) by Time Period, Document Type, Resource Type, and Date of Publication, and Record Number.

Other Helpful links

Chronology:

1. Click on the word Chronology.
2. You may pass your mouse over the graphical timeline and click on one of the 24 historical eras that interests you. When an era is selected, the titles of all of the timeline events associated with that era will be retrieved.
3. To access the full text of a timeline event, simply click on the title.
4. To view other types of documents that are related to the subjects of a particular timeline event, click on the Related Documents button.

Dictionary:

1. Click on the “Dictionary” link near the bottom of the page.
2. Type in the word you want to look up and click search.
3. Select the appropriate word you are looking for from the list.

Research Guide:

1. Click on its link next to “Dictionary”.
2. It contains an introduction to historical resources; information about how to identify a topic; how to craft a thesis; and how to develop a research paper.