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HIST 4000 - Senior Seminar - Ireland Since Partition

Primary and secondary sources for the History of Ireland for the 20th Century

Finding more Digital Archives

There are thousands (if not millions) of publicly available digital archives that could contain useful primary source material for your project. While Google is often unable to locate the material contained within a specific digital archive - focused searches using powerful Google commands can help you locate digital collections based on the descriptions of archives.

   

The site: command in Google

The site: command can be used to limit Google results to university websites ... e.g.  site:edu   Likewise Google searches can focus on government websites by using the command   site:gov

   

site:     this command limits to websites from a particular site or domain

e.g.      "digital collections"   "great awakening"   site:.edu

This search limits results to college and university websites  (.edu)

e.g.      "digital archives"   intitle:abolition   site:.gov

This search limits results to local, state, and federal government websites (.gov)

Be sure the word or phrase is immediately adjacent to the command "site:"  (no spaces)   

    

The "site:" command can also be used to search the website of an organization.  To do this find the organization online - e.g. New York Public Library - and take the root of the URL (web address) - the part after the "www" and before the first slash "/"

e.g.      http://www.nypl.org/collections    use  "nypl.org" in the command

e.g.      "digital collection"    abolition    site:.nypl.org 

To search the webpages of the United Nations - find a web address of the United Nations - http://www.un.org/en/ - and use the root of this web address - "un.org"

e.g.     "digital library"     slavery      site:un.org  

Google commands ... intitle: allintitle: "quotes"

Use quotes around a string of words in Google to search for an exact phrase.  Use quotes around a single word to make sure Google finds websites with that word in it.  The intitle: command can be used to search titles of websites ... e.g. ...  intitle:Lincoln  returns only websites with the word Lincoln in the title of the webpage.

 

Here are a few of the most useful and heavily used Google search commands:

"quotes"   putting words in quotes will lock in a phrase

e.g.            the Google search: "North Carolina"      will look for that exact state

                   the Google search: North Carolina        
                  might find North Dakota and South Carolina

      

                     

intitle:        looks for a particular word or phrase (but not all words) in the title of the website

e.g.            LibGuide  intitle:"civil war"    

This search looks for "civil war" in the title but not the word LibGuide

e.g.            "digital archive"    intitle:slavery

This search looks for slavery in the title of the website but not the phrase "digital archive"

Be sure the word or phrase is immediately adjacent to the command intitle: (no spaces)   

This command should be typed in lower case letters.

   

    

allintitle:    asks for all words and phrases to be found in the title of the website

e.g.            allintitle:  baseball   "digital archive"   Yankees

Note - phrases and words do NOT need to be adjacent to the allintitlecommand

This command should be typed in lower case letters.

LibGuides

LibGuides are research websites built by librarians.  The search "LibGuide" and "gllded age"

 

LibGuides are websites - put together by librarians - that focus on particular topics.  While some (much) of the content may be restricted to a particular campus or library - many LibGuides will also list free (open access) materials under categories such as "internet resources" - "websites" - "digital collections" - "digital libraries" - "online collections" - "digital repositories" - "digital archives"

If I was looking for digital archives on the history Native Americans I might try various Google searches such as:

  • libguide  intitle:"internet"   "native american"  site:.edu
     
  • libguide intitle:"digital archives"  "native american"  site:.edu
     
  • libguide intitle:"digital collections"  "native american"  site:.edu