Site Help
This page provides information about the website, including take down notices and guidance on how to search the UTSC Digital Collections.
- How Search Works in the UTSC Digital Collections
- Accessing the Collection
- Navigating the Collection Page
- Timeline View
- Searching by Keyword
- Searching by Title
- Searching by Subject
- Searching by Genre
- Searching by Date
- Searching by Description
- Improving Your Search With Boolean Operators
- Broaden your Search with Wildcards
- Create a Fuzzy Search with Tildes
- Look for an Exact Match with Quotation Marks
- Advanced Search Reference Chart
- Searching within Textual Documents
- Downloading Items
How Search Works in the UTSC Digital Collections
This section will guide you through how to browse and search the site. Read our tips and tricks below to find what you are looking for!
While the UTSC Digital Collection sites typically have the same search functions, each site may vary slightly.
Accessing the Collection
There are two main ways you can access the collection. If you are looking for something specific or have a search term in mind, you can type it in the search field on the top right-hand corner. This will take you straight to your results.
If you’d like to browse the collection or you need to set more search criteria, click the ‘Browse Collection’ box. This will take you to the Collection page.
No matter where you are on the website, you can always navigate back to the Collection page to search and browse by clicking the menu on the top left-hand side.
Navigating the Collection Page
Once you are on the Collection page, you will see a general view of all the items in the collection.
You can choose how you want to view your search results, by:
- Limiting the results per page to 5, 10, 25, or 50 results
- Sorting the results by the following criteria: Most Relevant, Title (A-Z), Title (Z-A), Oldest, Newest)
- Choosing the arrangement of the search results as a list, grid, or timeline view (timeline will take you to a new page and it is discussed in more detail below)
To the right of the page, you can enter your search criteria. There are four ways to search:
- Keyword
- Title
- Subject
- Genre
- Year Created
- Description
Anytime you need to start a fresh search, click the ‘Reset’ button under the search bar. This will reset all of your search criteria.
Timeline View
You can view your results as a timeline by clicking ‘Timeline’ next to the ‘List’ and ‘Grid’ page view options.
This view will display your results in chronological order as a timeline. At the top, there is an image of the selected item with its title, date, and a small description that can be expanded. Below it, there is the timeline bar.
To navigate through the timeline, hold and drag the timeline bar to the right for later results and to the left for earlier results. If an item exists for a specific date, it will appear as a small textbox above the date. You can click each textbox for more information on that item.
If there are a lot of results, they won’t all fit on a single page. Below the timeline bar there will be a page navigator. Once you have hit the end of the first page of results, you can click ‘Next’ or any of the page numbers to view the next page of results. To see the last page, click ‘Last’.
You can search in timeline view exactly as you would in list or grid view with the search area to the left.
Searching by Keyword
To browse the collection by a word or a phrase, your search criteria should be set to ‘Keyword’. This will generate a ‘fuzzy’ search which returns results that closely, but not always exactly, match your search term.
Type your search term into the search box then click ‘Search’. Your results will return a broad list of items that have a loose connection to your search term.
Searching by Title
To search by title, choose ‘Title’ from the drop down menu.
Type your search term into the search box then click ‘Search’. Your results will return a list of items that have a connection to your search term in the title.
Searching by Subject
There are three ways to search by subject.
If you would like to see all subjects in alphabetical order, from the Menu button on the top left-hand corner of the page, click ‘Browse by Subject’.
From the Browse by Subject page, you can click each link to view the items associated with that subject. View all subjects at once or view by the first letter of the subject.
Another way to browse for a subject is from the Collection page. Below the search field, there is a list of clickable subjects. You can click one or more and your search results will include items that contain these subjects. This is a great way to filter your results!
Finally, if you know the exact subject you would like to search for, you can use the search box. Choose ‘subject’ from the drop down and type the subject (with exact spelling and capitalization as used in our taxonomy) into the search box. For example you could type in ‘Events’ and the search results will contain all items tagged with this subject.
Searching by Genre
There are two ways you can search by genre.
If you would like to browse the different genres used on the site, there is a list of all the genre terms under the search area. You can click one or more genres and your search results will include items that contain these genres while excluding the genres you didn’t choose. For instance, you may only want to see photographs in your search results. This is a great way to filter your results!
If you know the exact genre you would like to search for, you can use the search box. Choose ‘genre’ from the drop down and type the genre (with exact spelling and capitalization as used in our taxonomy) into the search box. For example, you could type in ‘photographs’ to view all photographs in the collection.
Searching by Date
There are two ways to search by date.
If you know the exact year you are looking for you can set your search criteria to ‘Year Created’ in the dropdown and type the year into the search bar. This search will only work if you type a single year as a four-digit number (ex. 1980, not 80s or 1980-07-15 or 1980-1990).
Searching by ‘Year Created’ will only return items that match the date exactly as it has been recorded in the metadata. For instance, typing 1980 will return results where the ‘Date Created’ field is 1980, or 1980-07-15, or 1980-07 but it will not return close results with the year 1979 or 1981. In other words, this search function is not ‘fuzzy’. It works best if you have an exact year in mind.
If you are unsure of the date or would like to look for multiple dates, you can set a range of dates in the ‘Publication Date’ search area, which is on the left hand side, under Subject. Once you have set a range, click Refine for your results. You can combine the Publication Date search with a keyword search or title search to further refine your results.
This search works best if you only set a year as a four-digit number (ex. 1980, not 80s or 1980-07-15).
Searching by Description
Setting your search criteria to ‘Description’ in the dropdown, will search the description field of the metadata.
To search by Description, set your search criteria to ‘Description’ in the dropdown and type what you are looking for into the search bar.
Improving your Search with Boolean Operators
Boolean operators are a set of commands used to narrow and broaden your search. They include:
- AND: narrow your search to include items with all the search terms
- OR: broaden your search to include all search terms
- NOT: narrow your search by excluding certain words or phrases
Boolean operators are built into the collection search but you can also type them into the search box.
Before adding operators, you can break down each word or phrase in your search by clicking the little plus sign (+) under the search term box. A new search box will appear with a drop down to set the operator.
To remove a search box, you can click the minus sign under the plus sign. Or to start a new search, click ‘Reset’.
Narrow your Search with AND
Using the operator AND allows you to narrow your search. For instance, if your first keyword is ‘orientation’ and your second keyword is ‘games’, separated by the operator ‘and’, your results will include any items related to both games and orientations, while excluding items that only relate to games or only relate to orientation. Using ‘and’ returns fewer search results.
If you prefer to write this operator in the search box, you can write it as follows: orientation AND games. Most databases require that you capitalize the operator.
Broaden your Search with OR
If you are looking for a broader result and you want to see all items related to orientations and all items related to games as well as items related to both orientations and games, you can change the operator to ‘or’.This will return a larger number of results with any of these search terms.
If you prefer to write this operator in the search box, you can write it as follows: orientation OR games. Most databases require that you capitalize the operator.
Narrow Your Search with ‘is not’
The ‘is not’ operator can be used for Title, Subject, and Genre searches.
The search operator will be set by default to ‘is’. If you would like your search term to appear in the title of the items in your results, you do not need to change anything. If you want to exclude a certain word or phrase from your title, choose ‘is not’ from the operator dropdown.
This operator can be used to exclude words or phrases from your search. You can exclude one or more search terms.
For instance, if you would like to search for all items where the title has the word orientation but not the word games, type ‘orientation’ in the first search box. Type ‘games’ in the second search box and set the search operator to ‘is not’.
If you prefer to write this operator in the search box, you can write it as follows: orientation NOT games. Most databases require that you capitalize the operator.
For subject search, if you would like to search for all subjects except for Events, you can change the search parameter to ‘is not’.
For genre search, if you would like to search for all genres except for photographs, you can change the search parameter to ‘is not’.
Broaden your Search with Wildcards
Sometimes you need your search to return a broad range of results. One way to do this is by using a wildcard symbol (also known as truncation). This symbol can be either an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?). In our system, wildcards will work in a keyword search.
Using an asterisk (*) in your search term signals you would like the search function to include all the words that can be created from the root word.
For instance, if you search librar*, your results will include the following results:
- Library
- Library’s
- Libraries
- Librarian
- Librarians
You can also use the asterisk (*) wildcard at the beginning or in the middle of a word. For instance, if you search *est, your results will include the following:
- Test
- Pest
- West
- Contest, etc.
A question mark (?) symbol can be used in the same way as an asterisk but signals that you want to replace the symbol with only one letter or character.
For instance, if you search ?est, your results will include Test, Pest, West, and Rest but NOT Contest, because ‘contest’ has four letters preceding its root word ‘est’. To produce a result like Contest, you would need to use the asterisk (*est).
Wildcards will broaden your search results but it will also return results that may not be relevant to what you’re looking for.
Create a Fuzzy Search with Tildes
The tilde (~) symbol at the top left-hand corner of your keyboard can be used to make your search ‘fuzzy’, meaning that the search function will look for alternate spellings. This can be useful if you’re looking for a name that has multiple spellings.
For instance, if you search Shaun~, your results will include the following spellings:
- Shaun
- Sean
- Shawn
The tilde can only be used at the end of a single word. However, if you want to search multiple words with the tilde at the same time, you can add a search field by clicking the plus sign (+) and typing each term into each search box followed by a tilde (~).
For instance, if you want to search for the names and Brian and Shaun but would like your search results to produce all spellings, add a search field by clicking the plus sign (+), then type ‘Brian~’ into the first search box and ‘Shaun~’ into the second search box.
Look for an Exact Match with Quotation Marks
If you want a specific word or phrase to appear in your search results, use quotation marks (“”) to create a bound search term.
For instance, if you need your search results to specifically show the Alumni Golf Tournament, you can put quotation marks around the entire phrase: “alumni golf tournament”. Your search results will include any item that contains this exact phrase.
Advanced Search Reference Chart
| Operator | Usage | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AND | Narrow down your search to include results that contain both search terms | orientation AND games |
| OR | Broaden your search to include results that contain either search term | students OR undergraduates |
| NOT | Narrow your search by excluding certain words or phrases | orientation NOT games |
| Asterisk (*) | Replaces the asterisk with multiple characters. Use to search for multiple beginnings, middles, and endings of words. |
librar* will include results like:
|
| Question Mark (?) | Replaces the question mark with a single character. Use to search for multiple beginnings, middles, and endings of words. |
?est will include results like:
Will not include:
|
| Tilde (~) |
Use to make your search ‘fuzzy’ or search for synonyms and alternate spellings. Only works for Keyword search. |
Shaun~ will include results like:
|
| Quotation Marks (“”) | Use quotation marks to search for a specific word or phrase. | “alumni golf tournament” |
Searching Within Textual Documents
Textual documents in our collections include manuscripts, newspapers, books, menus, and more. These items are often annotated making it possible to search the content within their pages.
When you open a textual document like a newspaper, there will be a navigational panel next to the paged content that allows you to search the text within it.
If you have opened this document through a collection search, the search field will be populated by your search term by default, however, you can clear this search and start a new one anytime. You can also collapse this sidebar by clicking the three stacked lines.
If you would like to search for ‘dean in this newspaper, type it into the search bar. Anything that is highlighted contains the word ‘dean’.
Click through each number to view each result for ‘dean’. The result you have clicked will appear highlighted in yellow.
For the search to be successful, exact spelling and order of search words matter. For instance, searching ‘Nagel Dean’ turns up zero results because although those two words appear on the page, they do not appear in that order.
Bounded search using quotation marks (“”) is unsupported in our system.
Search results will not always appear in the order they appear on the page.
Downloading Items
You can download any items from the DSU sites so long as there are no copyright or privacy restrictions.
The download option will be on the item’s page under the viewer.
For an image, clicking ‘Download’ will download the image to your computer.
For paged content, like a book or a newspaper, you will have the option of downloading the whole document as a PDF or downloading individual pages. You can view these two options when you click ‘Download’.
Clicking ‘PDF’ will download the whole document to your computer. Clicking ‘Individual Pages’ will take you to a new tab where you can view all pages in a list view and choose which of the pages you would like to download.
