Primary & Archival Databases
There are two ways to search Archives Unbound; you can search individual collections, or search all of the library's Archives Unbound collections. Regardless of if you're searching in one collection or all of the collections, your search process will look very similar.
- Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Contains 36 digital collections focused on a wide variety of topics and regions, including the Civil War, Westward Expansion, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Search all collections, browse by collection or search within individual collections. - Introduction to U.S. History: American Revolution (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
Personal narratives and memoirs Political pamphlets and speeches, sermons and poems, legislative journals and popular magazines documenting the American Revolution from the earliest protests in 1765 through the peace treaty of 1783. Part of Archives Unbound.
- Introduction to U.S. History: Civil War (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
Personal narratives and memoirs, pamphlets and political speeches, sermons and songs, regimental histories and photograph albums, legal treatises and children's books documenting the Civil War. Part of Archives Unbound.
- Introduction to U.S. History: Slavery in America (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
Personal narratives, pamphlets, addresses, political speeches, monographs, sermons, plays, songs, poetic and fictional works published between the 17th and late 19th centuries documenting key aspects of the history of slavery in America. Part of Archives Unbound.
- WAVES, Records for the Asst. Chief, Naval Personnel for Women, 1942–1972 (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
Search and view digitized records collected by the Assistant Chief of Naval Personnel related to the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) branch of the U.S. Naval Reserve. Records included in the collection cover the activities of WAVES from 1942 through 1948, and on their subsequent activities and reunions through 1972.
Conducting a search
In this example, we will be searching all of Archives Unbound for primary sources about women in the military during World War II.
- On the Advanced Search screen, enter your search terms. I use the different rows to separate out the different concepts in my search.
- Select "Allow variations" to include slight variations in spelling or transcription of your keywords that may have occurred. This is particularly helpful if you are searching for a specific person or place that may have variations in historical documents.
- To ensure that the resources we find are about World War II, we will use the Publication date(s) option to specify our date range to be after 1939.
- Other filters can be used to select a specific collection to search, a specific type of content, or the source language.
- Select "Search". You should now see a list of search results.
- At the top of the search results page, you'll see a banner which allows you to navigate to specific content types. The Monographs option will show you published documents and images that are not from news sources (such as newspapers). Manuscripts are unpublished or internal documents or records. Archives Unbound Newspapers are digitized newspaper issues.
- Below this banner, you'll see a summary of your search, as well as an option to add additional filters.
- Below the search summary are your results, separated by content type. Clicking on the title of content item will allow you to view the item. If you would like to see more results of a specific content type, you can select the "View All" button at the bottom of the content type results to view additional content items.
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Once you've clicked on an item you wish to view, you'll see an item viewer. At the top of the page you'll see some bibliographic information, including the date, any related unique identifiers, the source library, and the collection the document belongs in.
- Below the bibliographic information are two panels; on the left, you'll see a few tools, and an option to find keywords within the document. On the right, you'll see a scanned version of the document by default. If you want to view a transcript, select "View Options". Your keywords will be highlighted in the document, and the Keyword preview options can be used to jump to where the terms are highlighted.
- The Explore option is populated by resources that Gale has identified as potentially related to the one that you are viewing. You can click on one of the items listed, or use "View All Related Articles" to view additional items.
