Special Collections Division: Searching Digital Collections

Digital Collections Main Page

Searches can be done across all of the collections at once or within a single collection, and all of the materials can be browsed. You may search across all fields or within a single field, such as title or subject. The following fields are searchable: title, personal name, corporate name, topical entry, geographic entry, description, creator, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, and relation. To browse all of the materials contributed to the digital collection by the Special Collections Division, do a search for “Special Collections Division” in the publisher field.

The following provide some tips for searching.

Subject Searches (Personal Name, Corporate Name, Topical Entry, Geographic Entry)

The materials in our digital collections have been assigned subject headings in accordance with the Library of Congress Subject Headings and the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials. This means that you may search for people, places, and topics just as you do in the library's online catalog.

Our ongoing work involves assigning subject headings based on predetermined themes and sub-themes developed by the division, and these themes and sub-themes may also be used as search terms. These themes are as follows:

Performing Arts Dance Music Theatre Architecture Architects Buildings Churches Fire Halls Libraries Schools Education Colleges and Universities Elementary Schools High Schools Junior High Schools Private Schools Business Aviation Enterprise Industries Insurance Journalism Medicine Printing/Publishing Restaurants Tourism Disasters Natural disasters Public health Accidents

Civil Rights African Americans Native Americans Race relations Women Military History Civil War World War I World War II Korean War Vietnam War Persian Gulf War Homefront Sports & Recreation Baseball Lakes Parks Sports Teams Capitol City City Government Community development County government Crime Downtown Nashville Housing Labor Metropolitan Government Organizations Politics Presidential Visits Public utilities Transportation Popular Culture Childrens History Entertainment Parades and Festivals Religion Shopping

Type Searches

Our digital collections may also be searched by type. For example, you could conduct a search to retrieve all of the photographs in our digital collections.

Terms to use in type searches are as follows:

• Still Image (for photographs, slides, maps, etc.)
• Physical Object (for 3-dimensional objects)
• Sound (for oral history interviews)
• Text

Format Searches

The digital collections consist of two primary formats:

• image
• audio

Relation Searches

The relation field tells you which collection the item came from. Use this field if you know that are interested in items from a particular collection, such as our Veterans History Project or the Civil Rights Oral History Project.