Help with Special Collections in Quicksearch
Introduction
Quicksearch enables searching of many different types of resources (books, journal articles, archival objects, etc.) across multiple data sources:
- Catalog includes physical and online resources, including Books, Archival collections, items from the HathiTrust Digital Library, Data sets, Media, and Images
- Digital Collections includes collection materials we have digitized and made available online in Yale’s Digital Collections
- Archives or Manuscripts includes records from Archives at Yale, our database of finding aids for archival and manuscript collections, as well as catalog records for manuscripts and unprocessed collections in library catalogs and HathiTrust
- Electronic resources licensed by Yale Library, such as articles and ebooks


Format limits
The Quicksearch landing page displays a list of “Data Sources” below the search box. Beneath that, on the left side of the page, a box labeled “All Results” describes what your search will be limited to by clicking any of the data source options. You may also apply a format limit after executing your initial search, by using the “See all Results by Format” column on the search results screen.
If you execute an Advanced Search, the “Format” drop down box allows you to select from several special collections formats. Format options for either type of search include:
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Books
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Online
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Archives or Manuscripts
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Journals and Newspapers
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Microforms
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Video & Film
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Maps & GIS
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Music Scores
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Dissertation & Thesis
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Audio
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Software & Electronic Media
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Images
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Data Sets
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Databases
Location limits
On the Advanced Search screen, you may limit your search to a specific library by selecting a repository in the “Location” dropdown box. Yale Library locations include:
- Bass Library
- Beinecke Library
- Classics Library
- Cushing/Whitney Medical Library
- Divinity Library
- Film Archive
- Film Study Center
- Government Documents
- Haas Arts Library
- HathiTrust Digital Library
- Internet Archive
- Lewis Walpole Library
- Library Shelving Facility
- Lillian Goldman Law Library
- Manuscripts and Archives
- Marx Library
- Math Library
- Music Library
- Online
- Oral History of American Music
- Sterling Memorial Library
- Yale Center for British Art
- Yale Internet Resource
- Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
- Yale University Art Gallery
- Yale University Library
Filter by online results
Form/Genre searches and facets
Within the Catalog data source, you may search the “Form/Genre” field from the pull-down menu to the right of the search box. Note that, within each record, you can click on Form/Genre headings to find similar results.
Genre/Form: |
Example: |
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Printed Material |
Broadsides, Poems, Songs, Sermons |
Manuscript material |
Diaries, Albums, Recipes, Scrapbooks, Account books, Sketch books |
Visual material |
Photographs, Drawings, Engravings, Mezzotints, Satires (Visual works), Genre prints, Caricatures, Portraits, Landscapes |
Cartographic material |
Atlases, Military maps, Nautical charts, Strip maps |
Bindings |
Armorial bindings, Chained bindings, Pigskin bindings |
Provenance |
Annotations, Armorial bookplates, Extra-illustrated copies |
Special collections subject searches
Bookbinders
You may search for bookbinders by name, within the “Author/Creator” field or the “Special Collections Subject” field.
Example: |
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Sangorski & Sutcliffe |
Provenance
To find items previously owned by an individual or corporate entity, search for the name within the “Special Collections Subject” field.
Examples: |
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Osborn, James Marshall G. & C. Merriam Company |
You may also search for items with provenance by combining a person’s name and certain provenance terms within the “Special Collections Subject” field. Such terms include Autograph, Binding, Bookplate, Inscription, Ms. notes, Original art, Ownership, Presentation inscription, and Stamp. Note: To search for a name as a phrase, enclose search terms in quotation marks, e.g. “Mellon, Mary Conover”.
Examples: |
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Van Vechten Carl bookplate Murdoch Iris autograph Mellon Mary Conover bookplate Nabokov Vladimir inscription Walpole Horace Ms. notes |
Incunabula
To find incunabula (books printed before 1501 in Europe) at Yale, search for the following terms, in quotation marks, within the “Special Collections Subject” field. “Incunabula” is also searchable as a Form/Genre term (see above).
Example: |
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"Incunabula in Yale Library" |
To find incunabula, you may also search for the country, city, printer, and date (in that order and with quotation marks) within the “Special Collections Subject” field.
Examples: |
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["Italy, Venice, after 1473"] "England. London. Pynson, Richard" "Turkey. Istanbul. David and Samuel ibn Nahmias. 1493." "Switzerland. Basel. Furter, Michael. 1496." |
Early publications
To find: |
Search: |
Example: |
---|---|---|
American imprints before 1820 |
[place] [year] |
"Massachusetts Boston 1720" |
Connecticut imprints before 1851 |
[place] [year] |
"Connecticut Hartford James Riley 1817" |
[States west of the Mississippi River] imprints through 1865 or 1890 |
[place] [year] |
"Nevada Reno 1890" |
Mexico imprints before 1865 |
[place] [year] |
"Mexico 1860" |
Medieval manuscripts
To find early manuscripts, or their fragments, search the following terms, in quotation marks, in the “Special Collections Subject” field.
Examples: |
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"Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Beinecke Library" Or "Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Fragments at Beinecke Library" |
You may also find manuscripts from a particular region by combining the regional or dialect term with “manuscripts,” in quotation marks, in the “Special Collections Subject” field.
Examples: |
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"Coptic manuscripts" "Ethiopic manuscripts" "Syriac manuscripts" "Turkish manuscripts" |
Pamphlets (tracts)
To find tracts (works with fewer than 100 pages) at the Beinecke Library and the Lewis Walpole Library, search key terms (in quotation marks) within the “Special Collections Subject” field.
To find: |
Search: |
Example: |
---|---|---|
American tracts |
amer tracts [year] |
"amer tracts 1776" |
British tracts |
brit tracts [year] |
"brit tracts 1642" |
European tracts |
euro tracts [year] |
"euro tracts 1790" |
Latin American tracts |
lat amer tracts [year] |
"lat amer tracts 1870" |