Help with Special Collections in Quicksearch

Introduction

This documentation is intended to assist you with searching for special collections materials within Yale’s libraries. Special collections are rare or fragile materials that you must use in designated reading rooms; materials include rare books, manuscripts, archives, maps, photographs, prints and drawings, recordings, digital content, and much more.
 
Screenshot of search box, with various data sources available

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 
Please remember that Yale Library staff are always happy to help you develop search strategies; contact us at special.collections@yale.edu for research support. 
 
Searching for special collections materials in Quicksearch can be done at a broad level through a basic keyword search across all the various data sources. Quicksearch defaults to the basic keyword search; in the Catalog data source you can execute an Advanced Search, which is helpful when you'd like to do more targeted searching (e.g. for items in a specific time period or language).
 
Screenshot of search box on the Yale Library home page
Basic keyword search
 
3Screenshot of advanced search with options for limiting results and searching on specified fields
 
Advanced Search, available within the Catalog data source
 
After executing a basic search in Quicksearch, you will notice search results grouped by format. If you click a format, the following screen will give you more options to narrow down your results by date, location, subject, and other categories, using the menus on the left. More information on using these facets is below. Some archives or manuscripts materials in Quicksearch may direct you to fuller finding aids in Archives at Yale. Quicksearch also includes an option to narrow your results to focus on materials that are available online, so that you can see only materials within your search results that are available digitally. Note that, within each record, you can click on subject headings to find similar results. 
 
Please remember that Yale Library staff are always happy to help you develop search strategies; contact us at special.collections@yale.edu for research support. 
 
Once you’ve found items of interest that you want to see in person, there are steps to take to prepare for a visit. Please place your requests at least two business days in advance of your visit, so staff can retrieve the items for you. You can find the details of how to create a library account for special collections, schedule your visit, and request the items at Using Special Collections at Yale Library. 
 

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: 

  • Books
  • Online
  • Archives or Manuscripts
  • Journals and Newspapers
  • Microforms
  • Video & Film 
  • Maps & GIS
  • Music Scores
  • Dissertation & Thesis
  • Audio
  • Software & Electronic Media
  • Images
  • Data Sets
  • Databases
Within Catalog, Formats may also be excluded from a search. The user must first click to include the limit, then click the drop-down arrow to choose “is not” from the menu above the search results list.  
 

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  
The “Location” limit also allows you to select specific collections within some of these repositories. 
 
Within Catalog, Locations may also be excluded from a search. The user must first click to include the limit, then click the drop-down arrow to choose “is not” from the menu above the search results list.  
 

Filter by online results

Click the “Show Online Results Only” button on the left side of the search results page to limit your search to materials available online. You may further limit your search on the “Viewing Online Items” results page in the same way you would limit a search for all material types. 
Screenshot of the show online results only button in Catalog search results
 
Within Catalog, online results may also be excluded from a search. Excluding online results in this way will facilitate finding items physically held by Yale Library. The user must first click to include the limit, then click the limit again to choose to choose “is not.”
 
Screenshot of option to exclude online results
 
Some digitized special collections materials can be found and viewed online in the Digital Collections Data Source.  
 

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:

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
 
After you run your initial search, you may narrow your results further using the facets on the left side of the page, under Limit Your Search. While most of the facets are general to searching all library collections, the Special Collections Subject facet is specific to searching special collections. Additionally, the Subject (Genre) facet, which includes terms such as “Early works to 1800” and “Woodcuts,” also yields special collections results. 
 
You may select “more” at the bottom of each facet to show additional subject headings or search for a specific one to filter your results. 
 

Special collections subject searches

You may search within the “Special Collections Subject” field on the Advanced Search screen by selecting it on the pull-down menu to the right of the search box. Within the Catalog data source, you may search the “Special Collections Subject” field from the pull-down menu to the right of the search box.   
 
You may search special collections-specific subjects using either the Advanced Search, located to the right of the search bar, or the drop-down menu option available when searching the Catalog Data Source.
 

Bookbinders

You may search for bookbinders by name, within the “Author/Creator” field or the “Special Collections Subject” field. 

Example:

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:

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. “Osborn, James Marshall”. 

Screenshot of search results containing the name Osborn, James Marshall with provenance terms

Examples:

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:

"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.

Screenshot of search example with punctuation

Examples:

["Italy, Venice, after 1473"]

"England. London. Pynson, Richard"

"Turkey. Istanbul. David and Samuel ibn Nahmias. 1493."

"Switzerland. Basel. Furter, Michael. 1496."

Early publications

Note: What constitutes an “early publication” is defined differently across various cultural contexts and geographic regions. Some early publications held by Yale Library are not within its special collections libraries and instead can be found throughout the circulating collections in Sterling Memorial Library, or elsewhere on campus. These items generally are not cataloged with genre headings and require using other bibliographical information to find (e.g., the Hodgson Bible in Arabic is an important, rare Bible printed in the north of England in Arabic in 1811, and its catalog record may be most easily found by searching for its publisher). 
 
To find early North American publications at the Beinecke Library, you should perform two types of searches to retrieve the most comprehensive results.
 
1. Search key terms (in quotation marks) within the “Special Collections Subject” field.
 

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"

2. Select the Advanced Search option to the right of the search bar in the Catalog Data Source and use the dropdown menus to search by Publication Place and Publication Year. Alternatively, you can use Publication date to enter a range of years.

Screenshot of the advanced search screen with the publication place, publication year, and publication date range fields highlighted

Medieval manuscripts

To find early manuscripts, or their fragments, search the following terms, in quotation marks, in the “Special Collections Subject” field. 

Examples:

"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:

"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, there are two types of searches that you should use to get the most comprehensive results.

1.  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"

2. Search “Tracts (literary genre)” as a Form/Genre search using the search dropdown in the Catalog Data Source and narrow down your results using the Subject (Region) facet on the left. For example, to find British tracts, select “Great Britain” under the Subject (Region) facet.

Local call number searches

Most of the special collections libraries at Yale use locally devised call numbers. If you know a Yale-assigned call number, you may begin browsing a collection by selecting the Catalog data source, then entering the first part of the call number in the search box and then selecting the “Call Number” index from the pull-down menu to the right. For example, searching "Shirley" the Call Number field in will show results for individual titles from the Betsy Beinecke Shirley Collection of American Children’s Books.
 
Please remember that Yale Library staff are always happy to help you develop search strategies; contact us at special.collections@yale.edu for research support. 
Last modified: 
Monday, July 14, 2025 - 1:22pm