Subject Browsing with Style

Did you know you can browse our manuscript and archival collections by subject? Our Finding Aid Database (now newly redesigned--more about that coming up next time!) allows users to see lists of all the subjects covered in our collections, and to filter these subjects by corporate name, geographic name, topical term, and more. The range and diversity of subjects is really quite astounding! 

Just to whet your appetite, here's an A to Z sampling: Alcoholism, Butchers, Cemeteries, Department Stores, Entomology, Folklore, Gerontology, Horse Racing, Indian Pottery, Jewelry, Low-income Housing, Miners, Nursing, Opera, Peace Movements, Race Discrimination, Stagecoaches, Tuna Fishing, Voyages and Travels, World Politics, Youth Movements, and Zines. 

Click here to browse a full list of topical terms. To browse all of our collections by subject, see our complete subject guides, which include print collections, unprocessed archival collections, and graphic and ephemera collections. Stop by Special Collections and University Archives to explore!

Using Finding Aids

Special Collections is proud to share a new tutorial called Using Finding Aids (best viewed with the latest version of Quicktime). Have you ever started a research project, quickly overwhelmed at the idea of working through lots and lots of material to find what you're looking for? If you're using an archival or manuscript collection as part of your research, finding aids can help. Finding aids are tools created by archivists that help users understand and navigate archival and manuscript collections. Finding aids describe and detail the organization and the contents of a collection. We created this tutorial because we know it can be daunting to embark on a project using primary sources or archival collections for the first time, and knowing your way around a finding aid can make the process much easier! 

The tutorial is divided into nine brief sections, and includes a quiz to test your knowledge after you've progressed through the sections. Learn more about these important tools, then stop in to Special Collections to put your knowledge to work!

New Online Exhibit: Unidos por la Causa

Special Collections is proud to announce the publication of our latest online exhibit, Unidos por la Causa: The Chicana and Chicano Experience in San Diego. This fantastic exhibit, prepared by SCUA employees Amanda Lanthorne, Priscilla Lopez, and Kerwin So, is the tenth in our series of exhibits using an open source exhibits tool from the New Media Consortium called Pachyderm. It is our very first bilingual exhibit, and we are excited to release these great selections from our Chicano/a Studies collections in both English and Spanish. We are currently processing several more additions to the Chicano/a Studies Archive--stay tuned to New and Notable for updates! And don't forget to take a look at the physical version of Unidos por la Causa on display in the Reference area of the Library under the Dome, which will be available through December 31.

In other exhibit news, we're busy planning our upcoming Civil War anniversary exhibit for Spring 2011, which will be in the Donor Hall for all of Spring Semester. To complement this exhibit, we'll be showcasing some of our best war- and military-related collections in the foyer gallery outside SCUA in the Spring. And inside the department, have a blast from the past with selections from University Archives in our SDSU A-Z display. Drop by the department to take a look soon!

Online Archive of California (OAC)

Special Collections and University Archives is pleased to announce that the Online Archive of California (OAC), a core component of the California Digital Library (CDL), now includes finding aids for all of our processed collections: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/institutions/San+Diego+State+University.

The OAC provides free public access to detailed descriptions of manuscript and archival collections maintained by more than 150 contributing institutions throughout California. As California's central repository for collection guides, the OAC is a vital resource that serves everyone interested in California's rich history, allowing them to browse online, search for information about specific items and their location, and learn how to access them no matter where in the state they are housed.

Our contributions have especially enriched the OAC's holdings documenting the San Diego region, and will enable all OAC users to discover our collections. Additional collections are added on a continuing basis.

A New Tool for an Important Collection: The Hotel Del Coronado Subject Index

The Hotel del Coronado Collection in Special Collections is an extraordinary and varied collection, documenting the early history of this notable San Diego landmark. A highlight of the collection is the eighty-nine volumes of bound outgoing correspondence, dating from 1888-1907. This correspondence is extremely valuable for the insights it provides into the early day-to-day management of the Hotel, the emerging urban landscape, and the lives of the people living in San Diego and environs at the time. Though a partial index of correspondents' names is included in the collection, until recently, the incredibly rich content of the letters has been opaque to researchers unable to spend the significant time required to browse the volumes. However, a comprehensive subject index to the first six years of the correspondence has recently been released in Special Collections.

Through this index, the remarkable life of the young Hotel del begins to come to light. These subject headings allow us to see the wide range of issues facing the early managers of the Hotel, some of which are important even today. There are extended entries on agriculture in the area, water and irrigation, immigration, labor, marketing methods for the Hotel and for Coronado, and companies and services in the developing city, such as sanitariums, railroads and electric streetcars. Some of the more intriguing subject entries include: air pollution, hot air balloons, desalinization, evangelists, the Hay Fever Association, parachutists, anti-Chinese racism, saloons, shipwrecks, and the World's Fair in Chicago. Researchers pursuing the correspondence listed under the subject entries will certainly find fresh insights into the role of the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, and exciting new perspectives on enduring topics in San Diego's rich history.

Originally a card file, this subject index was microfilmed as part of a preservation project in the early 1990s. This microfilm has now been scanned as a searchable PDF of 1371 pages (a large file). When searching the subject index, it is recommended that you mark the checkbox to "include comments" in Adobe Reader. We are excited to release this wonderful new tool!

A New Research Guide

Special Collections has recently prepared a new research guide to Children's Literature for our collections. The guide can be found under the "Special Collections" tab in the main Children's Literature Research Guide, prepared by children's literature librarian Linda Salem. Use this tab if you're looking for materials especially for young ones in our collections, including beautiful pop-up and movable books, exciting nineteenth century boys' adventure series, or historic children's periodicals.

Also featured in the Special Collections tab are some of our manuscript and archival collections dealing with children's literature, including the papers of Peter Neumeyer, and the papers of San Diego author Madeline Tabler. Our popular Edward Gorey collection is also linked from the research guide. And be sure to contact us or stop by the department if you have questions about this or any of our other research guides! (Image from John Martin's Book, a children's magazine, 1918.)