Search our Collections: Online Search Help

Overview

• The John F. Kennedy Library Digital Archives is powered by the Endeca search engine. Endeca works by refining your search results to display only the records relevant to your search criteria. There are three ways to refine your search: Keyword Search, Faceted Browsing, and Advanced Search. 
• Keyword and Faceted search can be used separately or together to find records. With every search refinement you select, "bread crumbs" will appear in the upper left corner under Your Selections. Clicking on the red [x] next to a term will remove that particular refinement but leave the others in place. The number of results available for each facet based on the criteria you have chosen is shown in parentheses. 
• Results for a Keyword search will appear in order of relevance. The results for a Faceted browse are ordered alphabetically and will always appear first, followed by all other object types, in chronological order. 
• An important note: The search interface searches two discrete sources of content: the general JFK Website and the Digital Archives. If you find that you are getting results from the Website, make sure that the radio button for Digital Archives is selected under the heading, "Source" – as shown on the right.

Keyword search

• Keyword search: To perform a keyword search, enter a search word or phrase in the search box. This will search the metadata for all records and return the records that contain the search word or phrase.
• A search performed in the box in the upper right corner of the page defaults to results from the JFK Website, whereas the search box on the Search the Archives page defaults to results from the Digital Archives. Clicking the Search box without entering any text in the search box will generate all available results.
• If you search without quotation marks, all words are treated individually, and results will be based on the number of times each word in the search box appears in the metadata. If you search with quotation marks, Endeca will return only those results in which the exact phrase appears. Search terms may be truncated using the * symbol.
• As you type in your search criteria, a list of suggested searches will appear below the search box. These suggestions are drawn from existing facets rather than an actual keyword search, and so choosing a word or phrase from this faceted list will not necessary return the same list of results that you would get by using the Search button. 
• Full text search within textual folders: When searching at the folder level (for digitized materials), Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software is used to find materials containing your search term(s). After entering your term(s) into the folder-level search box and clicking "Search" (see screenshot on right), only the pages containing your term(s) will be visible. To get all pages in the folder back or to clear your search and start again, click "[x] Clear". Please note that the OCR results have not been edited or verified for accuracy.

Faceted browsing

• Search facets: The "facets" (search terms) on the left-hand side of the search results page can be used to browse the contents of the Digital Archives without conducting a keyword search. The number of results available for every facet appears in parentheses ( ) next to the facet value. As you add or remove search criteria, you will see these numbers change, accordingly.
• The first and most basic facet is Source, which tells you whether you are searching content from the Digital Archives or the general JFK Library Website. You can toggle back and forth between JFK Website and Digital Archives results, but content from both will never appear in the same results list. Other facets include: Object Type, Digitized Collection, Subject, Person, Place, Organization, Contributor, and Common Search Term.
• Some facets appear only when a certain Object Type has been selected; for instance, if you narrow your search by the Object type "Oral history," a new facet for "Interviewee" will appear. If you choose "Collection" as your Object Type, the facet "Digitized Collection Contains" becomes available.
• A note about "Collection": Refining your search by "Collection" displays all collections held at the JFK Library, sorted alphabetically by last name or name of organization (direct order). The vast majority of our collections does not yet contain digitized materials, but open collections will display an online finding aid when one is available.
• Clicking on a collection record in a list of search results brings you to the Collection Overview, which provides basic details about the collection (an abstract, how many items or cubic feet the collection contains, and its availability for research), as well as a link to digitized content where available. If a finding aid is available for the collection it will appear on the Finding Aid tab next to the Overview, which is the default view for collection-level records.
• Object Type: Materials in the Digital Archives fall into one of seven (7) Object Types. These Object Types are listed below, and are linked to content available for each type: Collections, Textual Folders, Photographs, Sound Recordings, Moving Images, Museum Artifacts, and Oral History Interviews.
• Digitized Collection: The list of collections in this facet include only those collections with digitized content. Clicking on a collection name here will display digitized assets (materials) that make up that collection. Please note that the collection level record itself, including the finding aid, is not found here. If you are looking for a collection record and/or finding aid, choose the facet "Collection" under Object Type and choose the collection you are looking for from the search results.
• Digitized Collection Contains: Use this facet to limit your search to collections containing a specific Object Type such as photographs or sound recordings. The screenshot to the right shows that with the Object Type: Collection selected, there are 395 records available in the Digital Archives and zero on the JFK Website. Under Refine By we see that the results include: four (4) collections that contain textual folders; four (4) that contain moving images; two (2) that contain oral history interviews; two (2) that contain photographs; two (2) that contain sound recordings; and two (2) that contain museum artifacts.
• Subject: Here you will find topics represented in the archival materials. A list of topical browsing terms is also available, along with descriptive notes and links to related digitized content.
• Person: The names listed here represent people who are primary subjects of the archival materials.
• Place: Geographic locations represented in the archival materials.
• Organization: Organizations that are primary subjects of the archival materials.
• Contributor: An individual or organization, other than the archival creator, responsible for significant contributions to the intellectual, technical, artistic, or financial production of the archival materials. For photographic records, the Photographer (when known) would be listed here.
• Common Search Term: This list of terms is automatically generated by Endeca based on an index of the Digital Archives' contents.

Advanced search

• Use the Advanced Search to choose specific search fields, or properties, in which you want your search terms to appear. An explanatory list of available properties is available. You may include as many properties in your search as you like. Choose "All" to search across all available properties. Unless you know the exact term you are looking for, such as the formal version of a person's name (i.e. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963), it is best to search using "CONTAINS" rather than "EQUALS".
• Please note that Advanced Search does not currently cover: OCR'd full-text versions of scanned documents, PDF transcripts of Oral History Interviews, or finding aids. This content will be made searchable in the future as improvements are made to the search configuration.