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Finding Information

Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 offers today’s researchers and students the opportunity to explore topics and concepts quickly and deeply. The collection’s easy-to-use interface lets researchers access a magnificent library of primary sources, giving them a chance to bring ideas, facts and interpretations together in ways that they would have never imagined and are simply not possible through traditional research methods.

Searching

Researchers can search through millions of pages of text and thousands of works using the power of the Internet from the library, an office or even dorm room. Users can search by full-text, keyword, Library of Congress subject heading or author; focus on just parts of the works—by searching the frontmatter, main text or back-of-the-book indexes; or search just the title, publisher, place of publication or year range. Research can access the information they seek in just a fraction of the time previously spent using traditional research methods.

Basic Search
The basic search allows users to search the entire database for the presence of their desired term or terms from the full text of the collection’s contents. Or users can choose to search for their desired term(s) by selecting from these additional options:

Keyword
Author
Title
Subject

Basic Searches also allow the opportunity to limit results to works published within a specified time period.

Advanced Search
The advanced search option provides for even more specific results. Here users can select search criteria, link them together using Boolean terms, and employ wildcards or use the fuzzy search functionality. Users can enter up to five terms and combine or exclude them from the following list:

Keyword
Subject
Author
Title
Full Text
Person as Subject
Geographic Subject
Front Matter Main Text
Back-of-book Indexes
Publisher
Place of Publication
Source Library

The more information provided, the more specific the result. Users can also limit the Advanced Search results by the following criteria:

Year of Publication
General Subject Area
Serials Only
Specific Serial Title
Language of Publication
Number of Pages
Works containing specific types of illustrations
Gale Document Number
MARC Record Number
Sabin Collection Number

Fuzzy Search
Fuzzy Search functionality lets users locate near matches for the desired term(s). This especially helps maximize results that may be overlooked because variances in spelling between either time periods or place of publication (e.g. harbor, harbour).

Browse Authors
When a researcher employs this search, an alphabetical list of authors and authoring bodies is presented. A click on the desired author returns all the works in the database attributed to that author.

Browse Works
Like the Browse Author search, this search lets users select a specific title from an alphabetical listing. All works that comprise the title (such as multi-volume works or serial publications) are presented.

Search Results
Search results are presented as a list and may be sorted by author, title or date of publication (in ascending or descending order). Included in the results' list are links to the work itself, the full citation, an electronic Table of Contents (eTOC) and, where applicable, a List of Illustrations. Clicking on the work's title in the citation will take the researcher directly to the facsimile image of the book's title page.

Once viewing a specific work, the user may navigate to any page image of the work by using the printed page number, image number or the eTOC if the user wishes to jump to the start of a specific chapter or section of the book. If the user has conducted a full-text search, a list of relevant pages is provided that will link them to each page in the work that has a match for their search term. Pages or works may be marked for future use (course packs or reading lists) and the user may choose to e-mail citation or Mark list information, download in .pdf format or print up to 50 pages of the work at a time.