In this video we will walk through how to search for the books, photographs, and archives available in the UMBC Special Collections department.
On the Library homepage, you can use the main Everything or Books, Music, Video tabs to search for books in Special Collections. This includes books on photography, Maryland history, science fiction, rare books, artists’ books, and comic books.
You can see in the Location field that there is a non-circulating copy in Special Collections. Scans from books can be provided by contacting the Special Collections department.
You can also find Special Collections resources from our homepage. The Special Collections Search is recommended for searching for photographs and archival collections. Some publications, like the science fiction fanzines and radical literature collections, are also cataloged here.
In the search box, type in search terms that describe your topic. Let’s type “commencement and 1976” into the search box. Keyword searching works best if you use quotes or connect your main concepts with the the word “and.”
This results list shows several items from the University Archives, which documents our campus history. In the record you will find a title, call number, and other descriptive information. If a copy of the item is available in UMBC’s Digital Collections, then a link to the item will be included in the record.
If you’re only interested in digital materials, you can search or browse from the Special Collections homepage. You can enter a search term and then search across all collections. Or pick just one collection to search.
At the top of our homepage there are several ways to contact the Special Collections librarians. We’re always happy to assist you with your research!
Please reach out to the Special Collections librarians if you need any assistance!
