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 AOK OneSearch to search for books in Special Collections. This includes books on photography, Maryland history, science fiction, rare books, artists’ books, parapsychology, and comic books. The default setting in the drop down menu is Everything, which you can use to search all the Library materials, including Special Collections publications. Or, you can select Special Collections to limit your search to Special Collections books.
You can also use the Advanced Search option and then limit your search to Special Collections using the options along the top.
Now, let’s practice with a sample search for Special Collections books. Let’s type “spiritualism” into the search box. These search results are all books held in Special Collections. You can use the Location facet to limit your search results to a specific book collection, for example Maryland history, photography, or parapsychology.
For this example, let’s select the Bafford Photography collection. At the top of the record you can find the title, author, and publication date and ways to save and share the book record. The full publication information is available here, including related subject headings. And with the new virtual browse feature, you can easily see what books are on the shelf near this book.
You can also find Special Collections resources from the Special Collections homepage. The Search Special Collections 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 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, like “commencement" and then choose a collection to search in. Or, you can search in all collections. At the top of the Special Collections 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!
