Online Archive of California (OAC) Electronic Text Search/Browse Available

February 13, 2003 Author: CDLCategories:

The Online Archive of California (OAC) http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ has made available a new electronic text search and browse feature. The electronic text search and browse addition is part of a series of “soft releases” as OAC continues to broaden and enhance access to content, including oral histories, documents, images and finding aids. In October 2002, the OAC provided a prototype image search and browse feature designed to meet the needs of users seeking direct access to online content associated with finding aids (see CDLINFO, Vol. 5, No. 19 [http://www.cdlib.org/news/cdlinfo/cdlinfo103102.html#3].

Upon visiting the OAC home page, users have the option of searching or browsing from three different kinds of content formats: finding aids, images, or texts. Using tabs at the top of the screen, users are then passed to their interface of choice, each one designed to provide access to a unique type of content. With this new release, the OAC now provides access to an expanded group of oral histories, letters, and newspapers that were previously only accessible through the UC Berkeley Library Sunsite. Text content from the Regional Oral History Office (http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/), the Free Speech Movement Digital Archive (http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/ ) and the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Project – literally hundreds of documents – now complement the Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive (http://jarda.cdlib.org/) text content previously available through the OAC’s former Dynaweb interface. This new release features keyword searching across all texts, keyword searching within a single text, and the ability to browse text content according to a project topic.

Please try out these new features, and give us feedback via the links at the bottom of most pages.