ARC Tutorials

This tutorial will take you through the steps you need to follow to search for and access archival descriptions that also contain digital copies of the materials they describe.

A digital copy is a digital representation of an item (i.e., a motion picture film, sound recording, or scanned image of a letter, report, photograph, etc.) that is available to view online in ARC.

Not every archival description contains a digital copy, so this search will help you identify any available digital copies that might be of interest to you.

You may find it easier to print this tutorial out and follow the steps on a paper copy. If you prefer, you can open a second browser window using the url http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/ and switch between windows to try the steps for yourself.

 

1. To start, go to the Archival Descriptions Search screen and click on the Digital Copies button.

You will be taken to the Digital Copies Search screen.

 

2. We're going to search for some digital copies of items relating to our topic of woman suffrage.

In the search box, enter the search phrase National American Woman Suffrage Association. Then click on the Search button to start the search.

You will see that the Digital Copies Search results are shown in a different format from the other searches we have done so far. They are shown as thumbnails of the digital copies.

On this page, you can see there are four archival descriptions with digital images that match our search terms.  We can see the first two here.

 

3. Scroll down the page to see more.

The Digital Copies Results display contains summary information and thumbnails. Although the layout of the screen is different, the features are similar to those we explored in the first tutorial on the Basic Search.

 

4. You can view the larger access image by clicking on the thumbnail. Find the archival description with the title "This delegation of officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association received from . . .: 1917 - 1918". Click on the thumbnail image, not the hyperlinked title.

You will be taken to the detailed description view, with the Digital Copies tab selected. This screen shows a larger view of the digital image plus some brief archival description information.

 

5. To return to the results list, click on the Return to Results button at the bottom of the screen.

 

6. To see the more detailed archival description details, click on the hyperlinked title itself - in this case "This delegation of officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association received from . . .: 1917 - 1918".

You will be taken to the detailed description view, but this time with the Details tab pre-selected. The information on this screen is in a format that will look familiar from the Basic and Advanced Search tutorials.

Use the tabs along the top of this screen to view the different sections of the description as you did in the earlier tutorials. The only difference is that the Digital Copies tab now takes you to the same screen you accessed by clicking on the image itself in the search results screen.

 

7. As before, to return to the results list, click on the Return to Results button. 

 

8. The first digital copy we looked at had only one image in the archival description record, but some descriptions have more than one digital copy or image. We're now going to have a look at archival descriptions where more than one digital copy is associated with the description.

In the Results list, find the archival description with the title "Petition from Carrie Chapman Catt of the National American Woman Suffrage Association asking that a Committee on Woman Suffrage be appointed in the House of Representatives as in the Senate: 04/13/1917".

 

9. In the brief archival description, you can see a link to View More Digital Copies.

Click on this link and you will be taken to the full details page, with the Digital Copies tab selected. Previously, when we viewed the full details page for a description with a single digital copy attached, we saw a larger version of that image. Here, though, where multiple digital copies are attached to a description, we see thumbnails of all the digital copies.

 

10. Click on Digital Copy number 1, and you will see a larger version of that image.

 

11. You can now use either the arrows or the numbers at the top of this screen to navigate to a close-up of the second digital copy.  

Click on the number "2" to go to that image, or use the arrows to navigate there.

You will then see the second digital copy.

You can use the numbers or arrows to move back to the previous digital copy again.

 

12. If you want to return to the thumbnail view, click on the Gallery link at the top left of the screen.

You will then be taken back to the Digital Copies tab with the thumbnails.

 

We’ve now gone through the basic steps to run a Digital Copies search in ARC.

Note: The Digital Copies Search does not search for Online Resources linked to the archival descriptions. An Online Resource is a digital resource, such as a web page or a PDF file, that resides outside of the ARC database and enhances understanding of and access to archival materials described in ARC. It contains information about the archival materials or their use that is not part of a standard ARC description. Descriptions containing a link to an Online Resource have an icon next to the title in the Archival Descriptions Results page.

For more information on how to search ARC to find Online Resources and other digitized materials, see Frequently Asked Questions.

For more details on the Digital Copies Search, see Search Tips.