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USMA Library Tutorial: How to search the USMA Digital Collections Created July 5, 2017

What are digital collections? When some people think about library collections, physical collections of books on shelves come to mind. While the USMA Library does indeed have numerous collections of books in its holdings, it also offers digital resources to users. The word ‘digital’ typically denotes the use of electronic technology. So put simply, digital resources are library resources that can be accessed on a device (i.e. computer, smartphone, tablet), either inside the library building, or remotely. One specific type of digital resource the USMA Library offers to users are digital collections. Digital collections are made up of unique resources—including, but not limited to rare books, manuscripts, and other artifacts—that have been scanned and uploaded to the library’s website for convenient viewing. Another reason to digitize physical works is to preserve the content of the work. For example, digitizing an old, handwritten document with faded ink before the ink fades further and is no longer readable is a great reason to digitize. The Special Collections and Archives at USMA staff work hard to digitize rare books, archives, and manuscripts that they think would be useful to cadets and researchers near and far. The USMA Digital Collections The USMA Library currently has dozens of digital collections which allow for leisurely browsing or diligent research. The collections range in size and scope, and a researcher can search within all 36 collections, within just one collection, or anywhere in between, to find and access materials (2-35 at a time). How do I access the USMA Digital Collections? To view the USMA Digital Collections, copy and paste the following URL into your Firefox or Google Chrome web browser: http://digital-library.usma.edu/ .This is what the homepage of the United States Military Library Digital Collections looks like:

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Ways to search the USMA Library Digital Collections

1. Browse All Browsing is a method of searching that is more casual, and usually conducted by someone who does not yet have a specific research goal in mind. From the USMA Digital Collections homepage, click ‘Browse All’ to search all collections (circled below).

Once you click ‘Browse All,’ you should see the screen below. Notice on the left how all of the collections are checked (see arrow in image below). This means you are, indeed, browsing all collections.

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2. Browse within a specific collection If you wanted to search within a specific collection, you can click ‘Show 31 more’ (see star in previous image), and uncheck ‘Select All Collections.’ Now you can scroll to find the collection of interest, and check the appropriate box. Click ‘OK’ when you’ve selected the collection of interest. In the image below, we’ve unchecked ‘Select All Collections’ and have chosen to view the ‘Registers – USMA’ collection.

If you’ve followed the above steps, and you’ve clicked ‘OK,’ you’ll be greeted with a screen like this one:

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Notice how, in two different places, we can confirm that we are browsing the ‘Registers – USMA’ collection (circled in previous image).

3. “Search box” search Another way to search the USMA digital collections is through a “search box” search. A widely known example of a search box search is a Google search. A place, name, event—these are popular search terms that people may use in hopes of finding related results. Let’s continue to search the ‘Registers—USMA’ collection, and conduct a search box search within that collection. We will search ‘Frank Loring Dodds’ in the search box. Once you’ve typed ‘Frank Loring Dodds’ into the search box and clicked ‘search’ (or pressed enter on your keypad), you’ll see, ‘You’ve searched: Registers—USMA,’ and ‘All fields: ‘Frank Loring Dodds’ (circled above). This simply means that we have indeed searched ‘Frank Loring Dodds.’ You’ll also notice that our search generated 3 results (see box above). To view a result we can click on the thumbnail, or the title (see arrows above). Let’s open up the first result. From the title, we can assume that this result will be a list of some kind. To access the file, we can click on the pdf file itself (circled below).

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Sure enough, it is a list. We can find Frank Loring Dodds’ name from the alphabetized list, and see that he was originally from Illinois, and attended West Point in 1864. Now let’s close out of the PDF (click X in the top right), hit the back arrow in our browser, and view the second result. In clicking on the second result, we see the screen below. Since the title says ‘biographical register’ in it, we can hope that this file will contain some more information about Frank Loring Dodds’ life. Again, let’s click on the PDF file to find out (circled below).

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After we click on the file, we are greeted with this screen, where Frank Loring Dodds’ bio appears at the bottom. Since his bio is at the bottom of a page, we should check if it continues on the following page. Let’s close out of this PDF and go back to the previous screen. When viewing the digital collections, we have the option, ‘Page Flip View’ (circled below). This simply means that you can view the digital collections two pages at a time, and ‘flip’ the page. Let’s click on it so that we can see the page we were just looking at, which contains Frank Loring Dodds’ bio, and have the option to go to the following page.

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If you’ve clicked ‘Page Flip View,’ your screen should look like this. If you click on the gray arrow on the right as I have, you will see that Frank Loring Dodds’ bio does, in fact, continue on the next page (see box below). You can zoom in to read the entry better:

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Organizing your search Let’s say your search isn’t as simple as the Frank Loring Dodds example, and it generates more than 3 results. Knowing how to organize your results can help you find what you are looking for. One way to do this is to click on a column, for example, ‘Date,’ to organize the results in descending or ascending order. Let’s repeat the previously described steps: From the USMA Digital Collections click ‘Browse All,’ uncheck ‘Select All Collections,’ and this time, let’s check the ‘Pointer View’ collection. You should see this screen: By default, the results are organized by most dated, to most current. We can click on the column title, ‘Date,’ (circled above) to reverse the order. Here are the results, organized by currency of date:

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Exporting & printing After you’ve successfully searched for and found a material of interest, you may want to export or print it for further/future use. Below is a map from the Digital Collections. Circled below are the ‘Share’ and ‘Print’ icons. Upon clicking ‘Share,’ the screen below will appear. With this array of options, you are able to email the material to yourself or others, upload the material to various social media platforms, and even print.

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Another way to print is to click on the aforementioned ‘Print’ icon in the top right of the screen (see below). Selecting print should generate a screen like the one below, which will prompt you to select which printer you will be printing from, whether you’d like the material to print in black and white or color, etc.

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Citing materials from the USMA Digital Collections If you are using materials from the Digital Collections as part of a project, paper, or assignment, it is important to properly cite your work. All cadets have online access to the, ‘Documentation of Academic Work,’ which includes guidelines on different citation styles (see below).

Appendix D on page 36 titled, ‘How to Document Internet and Electronically Accessed Sources,’ is most appropriate for citing the Digital Collections since they are electronically accessed. Still have questions about searching the USMA Digital Collections? Chat with a librarian 24/7 using the chat reference bubble in the bottom right corner of the USMA Library homepage (see below).