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The Collation

Folger tooltips: "Narrow by collection" in the catalog

One of the great things about the Folger’s new catalog is that you can jump straight to different subsets of material. One of the unfortunate things about it is that this feature isn’t obvious.

I’m talking about the links in the “Narrow by collection” box at catalog.folger.edu.

Catalog landing page with search box and Narrow by collection options

The checkboxes make it look like you need to un-check things to narrow your search. In fact, each of the headings is a link that takes you straight to that sub-set of collection items.

For example, if you’re only interested in manuscripts from the 17th century or earlier, click the “Pre-1701 manuscripts” link:

Screen for Narrow by collection with Pre-1701 manuscripts circled

That takes you to a list of all pre-1701 manuscripts and a search box for looking only within that group of collection material:

Catalog results screen for Pre-1701 manuscripts search

By default, it shows newly-created records first (“latest first”) so it’s a quick way to see if anything new has appeared in the catalog. If you want to change the sort order or add additional sub-collections of material to your targeted search area, the “Options” button reveals more choices:

Catalog search results options screen

Remember to select “Vault” in the Item access facet to remove modern facsimiles, microfilm, and digital images of non-Folger material.

Screen shot showing checkboxes for Online, Open stacks, Reference, and Vault

As always, if you have any questions about the catalog, please contact catalog@folger.edu and we’d be happy to assist.