By using search categories (currently available on the Home page, Local History Index and IWRDB -- The International Wine Research Database) is that you can use Boolean search logic to build complex, combined searches when multiple controlled vocabulary groups are configured in this way. While multiple terms within a single category are run as an OR search, searches constructed using multiple, different categories performs an AND search between categories.

Please Note: if multiple terms are selected from multiple categories to run a combined search, results returned will include hits found across records where at least one term from each category selected appear in the same record. In the example below, if you were to select two document types (say, Printed Book and Manuscript) and combine that with two selections from People (Charles Dickens and Jane Austen), results returned could have any of the following combinations:

• Printed Book and Charles Dickens
• Printed Book and Jane Austen
• Manuscript and Charles Dickens
• Manuscript and Jane Austen
• Printed Book and Charles Dickens and Jane Austen
• Manuscript and Charles Dickens and Jane Austen
• Printed Book and Manuscript and Charles Dickens
• Printed Book and Manuscript and Jane Austen
•  

Each term or ‘category’ will appear as an input box. Clicking on the box brings up an alphabetized list of all terms in that category – if there are over 200 terms, the list will be broken into alphabetical tabs. Where there are more than 200 terms, any terms that begin with a numerical or special character are displayed in a dedicated “#” tab that appears after “Z.” You can then browse the list or search for a specific term in the search box provided. You can select multiple terms per category.

Clicking anywhere outside the selection box will close the box and you can now click on the Search button.

Each time a category is updated with selected terms, the total number of results will be shown next to the search button so that, before you run the search, you can see if your combination of search terms will return any results.

(adapted from the Quartex documentation)

Although we know the locations and identity of subjects in many of our photographs, we unfortunately have many such images (also check out our Flickr collection of unidentified images). Do you have new information about one of these photographs in our collections? Please leave a comment on the item's page or Contact us directly.

You may contribute in several ways, from donating photographs or other materials related to Sonoma County history and life to providing additional information about materials found in the Sonoma County Library Digital Collections. Please see our Donations page for details.

We also need volunteers for various digitization projects and to identify photo locations -- while most of our historical photos have location information, we have many that have minimal or no location listed. If you would like to offer your time, please visit the Rohnert Park/Sonoma County Library Headquarters Volunteer Page.

What is metadata?

The dictionary definition for metadata is “data that provides information about other data” or put more simply “data about data.” In the context of libraries and archives, metadata is information about a resource, be it a book, manuscript, or collection, that describes and contextualizes the resource so that people may discover, find, and know about the resource.

What do all of the various metadata fields mean?

Each digital object contains a wealth of metadata across numerous metadata fields. More information on what every metadata field means may be found in our Guide to Viewing Images, Documents, and More.

We include terms in two different metadata categories which, at first glance, might seem very similar to one another. However, Subject terms and Genre/Form terms describe distinct aspects of a document. Subject terms, drawn from the Library of Congress Subject Headings list, describe the content of a document and/or capture the essence of its topic. Some examples of subject terms include "Rural schools", "Floods", or "Ford Model T automobile." Genre/Form terms, drawn from the Getty Research Institute's Art & Architecture Thesaurus, describe what a document is or what category of literary composition it belongs to. Some examples of genre/form terms include "aerial photographs", "membership directories", or "sound recordings." Note that many items include other types of subject terms, ranging from names of persons, families and organizations to geographical areas and locations. In addition, all materials assigned to the Local History & Culture group include one of 22 "Local History & Culture Themes" terms. Many ways to find materials by topic!

Below the viewer on every image record (photos, documents and maps) is the logo for the International Image Interoperability Framework in blue and red and a "Viewer" button to the right of the logo. The IIIF (spoken aloud as "triple-eye-eff") is an international standard for image viewers that promises greater interoperability for digital holdings held by different institutions. Clicking the IIIF logo will bring you to the IIIF website. Clicking the viewer button will bring you to an IIIF-compatible Mirador viewer for the digital object.

The IIIF-compatible Mirador viewer provides additional tools to view and manipulate digital objects. Most powerful is its ability to compare two different digital objects side by side, even if the digital objects are from completely different digital repositories. The IIIF viewer is considered an advanced feature and we do not recommend its use for general viewing purposes, especially for photographs, but may be helpful when viewing documents since it enables multi-page views. See Guide to Viewing Photographs and Documents for additional instructions.

What does the "Manifest" button do?

The manifest is a piece of computer code that can be used by computer systems as part of the IIIF viewer. Clicking the button will open a new browser tab and the manifest code will be displayed. How that code will be displayed will depend on which browser you are using.

For general users of the digital archive, the manifest button will have no practical purpose.

Controlled vocabularies are collections of terms and phrases which are used to describe digital objects and link together similar and/or related documents. Controlled vocabularies are used extensively as part of our metadata. Every controlled vocabulary term will be surrounded by a light gray bubble. When you click a controlled vocabulary term, the system will run a search whose results include all items which contain that controlled vocabulary term in their metadata. Controlled vocabularies are also an important tool for further refining searches using filters. The easiest way to make use of the controlled vocabularies is to take advantage of the Search Categories (see above).

Faceted searching allows you to augment, refine, and change the parameters of a search on the fly without starting a new search. Facets and filters can be applied to any search results or when browsing by using the left-hand "Filter results" menu. For more information on how to use facets and filters, please read our Guide to Refining a Search.

The digital archive is constructed on AM Quartex, a Quartex is a digital asset management (DAM) system that enables libraries and archives to showcase, share and celebrate their archival materials. The platform is created and managed by Adam Matthew Digital, an academic publisher located in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Learn more about Sonoma County Library's process of creating the Digital Collections site as the first public library on Quartex through two presentations, Engaging Communities Through Digital Collections -- Library Journal Webcasts (November 3, 2020) and Case Study: Protecting Archives for the Future -- Quartex (April 2021)