Church History Library Research Tips: How to Search Effectively in the Church History Catalog
When you cannot find the right item you’re looking for in the Church History Library, use these three tips to narrow your search.
The Church History Catalog holds millions of digitized journals, photographs, reports, and other materials, as well as call numbers and information on physical items held in the library. With the vast number of collections available in the Church History Catalog, at times it may feel like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack or hunting for long-lost buried treasure. The catalog is a tremendous resource for researching Church history, and with a little guidance, anyone can easily begin finding what they’re looking for. Here are three tips to search effectively in the Church History Catalog.
Tip #1: Turn Your Topic into Keywords
Unlike Google or Bing, which allow you to perform searches on questions or phrases, the Church History Catalog delivers results based on keywords. What are keywords? Keywords represent main topics of catalog items. Several common and useful types of keywords include:
- Names (Brigham Young, Isaac Morley, Louise Y. Robison)
- Places (cities, countries, missions, buildings, ward/branch/stake names boundaries)
- Events (baptisms, dedications, ordinations, deaths)
Catalog search results come from matching keywords you enter in the search bar to those written by professional archivists and librarians and found in item descriptions, subjects, and other fields. The catalog doesn’t search the contents of collection items, only the descriptive information created by the person who catalogued the item or collection.
Example
Searching for the phrase “When did the seagulls eat the crickets in Utah?” in the catalog yields only one result because the result's item description contains every word in the entered phrase. Limit the search to “cricket” and “seagull” and now 73 results appear giving you more resources to research.
Enter too many keywords or long phrases and you run the risk of limiting your search results or receiving no results at all. Simplify your topic with one or two keywords, and you will have a stronger foundation in which to refine your search.
Tip #2: Get Specific with Your Keywords
At times, certain keywords still don’t yield the results you’d expect. When this happens, it helps to get more specific with your keywords. An extra or different keyword may make all the difference. Here’s an example to illustrate this tip:
Example
Say you want to search for resources about the measles outbreak among Mary Ann Angell Young’s family. You initially searched for “Mary Angell Young” and get 134 results—too many results to sift through to find what you’re looking for.
You then search “Mary Angell Young outbreak” and receive zero results. The keyword “outbreak” is too broad of a search term and doesn’t appear in any item description.
Then you search “Mary Angell Young measles.” This produces one result, a letter from Mary to her husband, President Brigham Young, about their children contracting the measles during Christmas.
Item descriptions are designed with specific and direct keywords to aid your search. In this example, the description of Mary Ann Angell Young’s letter reads “Account of family matters; measles.” Because the catalog bases results primarily on keywords that match words in descriptions, the keyword “measles” provided the desired result in this instance.
It may also help to search for synonyms, antonyms, or alternate spellings of keywords to yield different outcomes, as additional items may appear from these varied search terms. Many early Latter-day Saints’ names have different spellings depending on the document you’re searching for, and the cataloguer may have used a certain spelling in the description.
Tip #3: Narrow Your Results with the Filter Tool
Church History Catalog Filter Tool found on the left side of the Catalog screen
The catalog’s filter tool is another resource to assist your research, especially when all the right keywords still yield a larger number of results. The filter tool, titled “Narrow Your Results,” appears on the left side of the catalog screen after you successfully receive results from a keyword search. Please note: if you perform a search that produces no results, the filter tool will not appear. With this tool you can narrow results based on the following:
- Creation or publication year (including ranges of years)
- Digital versus non-digital items
- Record types (archive or library materials, article index)
- Genre (journals, minutes, photographs, biographies, etc.)
- Subject (grouped topics based on keyword searched)
- Author or creator of item results
- Content language
- Place (locations associated with item results)
Example
Once you perform your initial keyword search, the filter tool will also show you how many catalog items you will receive once you add a particular filter. When you search “Brigham Young” in the catalog, 54,259 results appear initially. Then if you go to the Author/Creator section of the filter tool and click on “Young, Brigham, 1836–1903,” your search narrows to 172 results. This filters out items about Brigham Young to focus on those created by him. Make sure to click on the “Apply Filters” button at the top of the filter tool to add the filter.
You may need to refine your filters several times to obtain desired results. Also, keep in mind that the filter tool only narrows your previous search. It does not broaden it. If you find your search lacks results, you may need to decrease the number of filters or try a different keyword. And again, make sure to click on the “Apply Filters” button to update the results.
More About the Church History Catalog Filter Tool
On a quick note, using the digital versus non-digital items filter may or may not yield viewable results. In cases where an item is digitized but not viewable, you can submit a request for digital access. To request access to a digital item, simply click on the “Request Digital Access” link above the specific item you wish to view and fill out the form. The Church History Department is quick to respond to these requests and provide access, but some materials may not be made available online due to copyright, privacy, or other aspects as discussed in our access policy.
If you wish for the library to digitize a particular item in the catalog, you can also submit a request through the Ask Us service at the top right of the catalog screen.
You can also use the dropdown menu directly to the left of the search bar to filter your search terms specifically for call numbers, titles, authors, subjects, or Church periodicals. To filter this way, click on the “Any” dropdown and choose one of the options mentioned previously. For example, if you perform an initial search for “Brigham Young,” you can then use the dropdown menu to filter catalog items that only contain your search term in the call number, title, items authored by President Brigham Young, and so forth. This is an incredibly useful way to fine tune your search and find what you are looking for faster.
These three tips will help you effectively search for items in the Church History Catalog. If you ever need additional support, we invite you to use the Ask Us service at the top right corner of the Catalog screen to connect with a research consultant at the library.
Happy searching!