Special Collections and University Archives Finding Aids

This is the Home page of the Special Collections & University Archives database: https://archivesspace.uic.edu/. 

• The menu at the top of the page will always appear and allow you to navigate to other areas of the database from any page. Selecting Home or the UIC University Library logo will bring you to this screen. You may also begin a search by selecting the magnifying glass icon. 

• Collections and access points such as subjects, repositories and other filters will appear underlined when you hover over the words with a cursor. The underline indicates a clickable link.

• Selecting links will not open a new tab but will continue your session on the same screen. Hold Ctrl/Command or right click when selecting links to open the page in a new tab. 

• You may change the order shown on results pages by navigating to the top-center-right of each search result page and clicking the drop-down bar that says ‘Relevance’ and choosing your preferred result order. Click on the ‘Sort’ button to change the order of the results accordingly:

• You can narrow down your search results through the ‘Filter Results’ section to the right. You can search for more narrow terms or year ranges or select an Additional Filter. 

The menu at the top of any page in ArchivesSpace lists four different sections: Repositories, Collections, Subjects, and Names. These sections allow you to browse the database. 

• Repositories 

• The UIC Library’s archival collections are held in different repositories depending on the topic of the collection, either University Archives or Special Collections. UIC archival collections are housed in different physical locations as well: the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago, the Library of the Health Sciences – Chicago, and the Library of the Health Sciences – Peoria. To distinguish between these locations and subject areas, there are four “repositories” in ArchivesSpace where collections are housed. They are: Library of the Health Sciences – Chicago Special Collections, Library of the Health Sciences – Peoria Special Collections, Richard J. Daley Special Collections, and University Archives. 

• You may browse by repository by selecting one from this screen. You will be shown what is in the repository, selecting the Collections box will show you all archival collections held within that repository.  

• Collections 

• By selecting Collections, you will be shown all archival collections held by UIC across all four repositories in alphabetical order.  

• However, you can filter the collections by repository by selecting from the righthand Filter Results section. For example, if you want to see just the University Archives collections, select ‘University Archives.’ You can filter collections further by Subjects, Languages, or Names. Searching a keyword is most useful for browsing collections. 

• Subjects 

• Collections in ArchivesSpace are usually given Subject terms for cataloging and categorization. You can filter subjects by repositories by selecting one under the Filter Results bar on the right-hand side.  

• Subjects are connected to Collections so you may also browse for collections by a Subject. Selecting ‘Design History’ will show you all collections with Design History as a Subject.

• NOTE: Not all collections have Subjects assigned, and there are often duplicate records. You will not get complete results by searching by Subjects or Names. 

• Names 

• Names function much in the same way as Subjects, except that they are terms of individuals or organizations associated with collections.  

You may begin a search from any screen on ArchivesSpace by selecting the magnifying glass on the bar at the top of the screen. Note: Beginning a search will move your session onto the search page. Be sure to open the search session in a new tab if you wish to keep your previous page open. 

Basic Search 

When you use the ArchivesSpace search bar, there are several optional search fields. 

• The most basic search you can do is to enter a keyword like “design” in the search bar and select Search. This will give you all results where the keyword “design” appears in the database, not just in collection titles but any description at any level, like folders, notes, subjects, etc. 

• TIP: Adding “quotation marks” around keywords will give different results than searches without. You can use boolean searches with AND or OR in ArchivesSpace. 

Advanced search 

• You can conduct an Advanced Search by using the optional fields.  

• Search all record types or Limit to collections. 

• If you choose "Limit to collections," the search will return only a list of collections that contain your search term somewhere in their Finding Aids.  

• If you choose "Search all record types," the search will also return a list of individual series, boxes, folders, or items that contain your search term in their description from within any of our collections.  

• Search field, with dropdown options: Keyword, Title, Creator, Subject, Notes, Identifier.

• We recommend searching by Keyword unless you know specifically which records you're looking for. 

• Each collection has a unique “identifier.” Searching by identifier is useful if you have used our collections before and know the identifier for the collection you’re searching. For example, the LeRoy Winbush design papers identifier is MSWINB98. 

• Limit years  

• You can limit your search to a range of specific years. However - keep in mind that archival material is often listed according to the date it was created, not necessarily the time period to which it refers. 

• For example, the Jane Abortion Collective oral history collection interviews are dated according to the year the interviews were conducted (1980), but much of the content of the interviews refers to their years of operation (1965 to 1973). Limiting an ArchivesSpace search on "abortion collective" to 1960-1970 would not return these interviews. 

• NOTE: Many collections will not be parsed by their years however, because their searchable date fields have not been properly filled in. UIC SCUA is working to improve this issue.

• You may add another row of search terms to narrow down your results and combine any optional fields in one search.

Finding aids are inventory listings of our collections. Keyword searches will return anything from those finding aids that have that keyword.

The search results display what are called ‘records’ in the following order: collections; subjects; individual files (Archival Objects). You can change the order of the results by selecting the drop-down menu at the center, choosing a different sort order by Title, Year, or Identifier, and clicking the Sort button. 

The right side of the screen will show additional filters to narrow down the search results. Each filter shows the number of results it contains. Additional filters include Repository, Type, Subject, Language, and Names. As filters are selected, the other filters with results can also be selected. under “identifier,” consider replacing “For Special Collections records” with “For manuscripts collections.”

Fields encountered in search results: 

• Title 

• The title of the collection, series, sub-series, folder, or item. 

• Type 

  • In ArchivesSpace, everything has a record “type.” A Type is a classification of records defined by their function, use, format, genre, subject, or physical characteristics. There are a few different types, but the main types are Archival Object and Collection. Collection records are the entire finding aid. Archival Object is the individual folder or item within a collection.  

  • When viewing folder or item level records, the box and folder information will be included here. In some instances, the series and subseries numbers will be included also. 

• Identifier 

• In collection records, the identifiers are codes assigned by Special Collections and University Archives. For Special Collections records, the identifier will start with MS. For University Archives records, the identifier is a string of numbers based on the UA record hierarchy. 

• If an archival object (i.e., folders, items) has an identifier, it will indicate the series or sub-series. 

• Abstract or Scope & Content 

• The Abstract is a brief description of the overall collection. The Scope and Contents will show if an abstract is absent. The Scope and Contents is an overview of the type of documents in the collection and what information they contain. 

• For folders/items, you may see “From the [either collection, series, sub-series]” next to the description. This means there is no description for this particular folder or item, and ArchivesSpace fills in the most specific description. 

• Dates 

• The date or date range of the collection, series, sub-series, folder, or item. 

• Dates may display in different formats, either as Year-Month-Day (YYYY-MM-DD) or as a more reader-friendly format. For example, the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence may read either as 1776-07-04 or as July 4, 1976.

• Found in 

• This field will show where the search result fits within the entire collection. These “breadcrumbs” begin with the repository, then the collection title, then any series or sub-series. Click on any part of the breadcrumbs to go to that section.

Select a collection record from the search results to view the finding aid. The page that opens is the “Collection Overview,” which contains all of the main information about the finding aid. This includes the abstract, scope and contents, arrangement, access and use restrictions, and subject headings. 

• On the right side of the page is an expandable inventory of the collection’s contents. Click on the arrows to navigate the collection’s series and sub-series. If there are no series in the collection, the inventory will be a list of the folders. 

• Collection Organization combines some of the finding aid main information with the inventory as one browsable list. 

• Container inventory is a list of the containers in which the collection is stored. Generally the inventory will be a list of the boxes. Click on a box to see a list of its contents. 

If you select a folder or item record from the search results, you will see a page similar to the collection page, but it will describe that folder or item. You will see the breadcrumbs as they appear in the search results. The description from the series or collection will also be present, as well as any access and/or use restrictions that would impact that particular material. On the right, the expandable inventory of the collection will be present, but it will be opened to where that particular folder/item is in the overall hierarchy. 

Citation 

• To get a citation, click the Citation button at the top right of the browser window. You will receive a citation for the item and another for the description of the item. 

Print 

• Next to the citation button is a Print button. Click on it to generate a PDF of the finding aid, which may automatically download. Note this will take some time to generate depending on the collection size. 

Appointments must be made to view materials, which you can do at this appointment form.
We require at least 2 business days notice of any appointments.

• The appointment form asks you to list the collection title and specific boxes you wish to see during appointments. That information is found at the top of an archival object page:

• In order to find the box numbers, be sure to enter into an archival object (on the right side) directly below it to see the box. You do not need a folder number for the request. If you do not see the box and folder, you may be at the series or collection level.

You may also call us (312-996-2742 for Daley; 312-996-8977 for LHS) 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, email us 24/7 at lib-spec@uic.libanswers.com, or send the request to us through the Ask a Librarian widget.