Help Topics
How do I search for materials?
What should I know about phrasing my searches?
How can I filter my search results?
How do I access materials I find on this site?
How do I navigate the site?
Archives Home: The main Archives page, where you will find information about Lehigh Libraries Special Collections archival materials.
Collections: Complete alphabetical list of guides to all cataloged archival collections. This site does not include collections in the Archives that have not yet been cataloged. If you cannot find the information you are seeking here, contact us and we will gladly check our internal database for you.
Subjects: Alphabetical list of subjects associated with each collection as defined by Archives staff to connect researchers with material of interest.
Names: Alphabetical list of people and organizations associated with collections. Note that these are names assigned by Archives staff and may not include all names that appear in a collection.
Record Groups: Archival materials organized by top-level classifications, as determined by Archival staff members.
How do I search for materials?
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Begin a basic search by entering your search terms in the search interface on the home page, or click on the magnifying glass icon in the navigation menu. You may limit the search by record type, search field, and date.
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The searchable fields are:
Keyword: Searches the entire text of items within the Archival Portal.
Title: Searches titles of the collection guides and the titles of series and files within collection materials described. If you know the precise title or part of the title of what you seek, searching by title can be very helpful.
Creator: Searches names of the persons and organizations who created the collections.
Subject: Searches by subject headings assigned to collections by archivists.
Notes: Searches text found in any of the note fields.
Identifier: Searches the alphanumeric identifier for the collection, e.g. SC MS 0334 (identifier for the Bethlehem Housing Authority records).
Record types allow you to customize the type of records you want a search to return. For example, selecting ‘limit to collections’ will only return records for collections, rather than people, subjects, series, and files.
You may select a date span to limit the search results chronologically. Searching by date is approximate, and results may fall outside the date span you enter.
You may construct a more complex search by selecting the + icon and adding additional search parameters.
To continue searching from a search results page, click on New Search or Refine Search buttons in the top right.
What should I know about phrasing my searches?
Searches are not case sensitive. It will not matter if you use upper or lower case in your search: the results will be the same.
You may search for phrases by including quotation marks (e.g. "Housing Authority").
By default, searches with two or more search terms return results containing all of your terms. If you wish to get results that include at least one of your terms, insert the word OR between terms (e.g. Linderman OR Fairchild-Martindale). To limit your results to exclude a particular term, enter the word NOT between terms (e.g., Linderman NOT Fairchild-Martindale).
You may add a tilde (~) to search for search terms within a specified number of words of one another (e.g. "housing authority"~5 will return results where the term housing occurs within 5 words of the term authority).
"Wildcard" symbols ? and * help return a greater number of relevant results by searching for variant spellings and forms of search terms simultaneously.
? replaces a single letter in a search term (e.g. searching wom?n will return both women and woman, and searching modern? will return both modernist and modernism).
* replaces any number of letters at the end of a search term (e.g. searching photograph * will return photographs, photographers, and photography).
? and * may not be used as the first character of a word.
To use a wildcard in combination with another search term (e.g. wom?n engineer), use the + icon to create another row and enter each search term in a separate row.
How can I filter my search results?
Once you've done a search and are on the search results page, you can use the filter pane on the right side of the page to further limit and customize search results.
You may use the filter pane to filter by record type, subject, language, and names.
You may also use the search bar at the top of the filter pane to create additional searches within the search results.
How do I access materials I find on this site?
If the material you are interested in is available online, you will see a link to that collection or item on The Preserve, Lehigh's institutional repository. For all other material, please contact us.
Suggestion: Please be as specific as possible when emailing us about information you find in a collection guide. In your message, cite both the title of the collection, the series if applicable, and the box and folder number if they appear in the guide. This will help us to more quickly answer your question. You may also supply us with a screenshot.
What if I have questions?
If you have questions, contact us.
We will continuously update this help page based on user feedback. By contacting us with your questions, you will be helping to improve the site for future visitors.