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Search our finding aids for archival collections in Smith's Special Collections.

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Search across archival and bibliographic collections for rare books and periodicals, including links to finding aids.

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Search Tips  |  Research Guides  |  Digitized Content

Use the tools and links on this page to find materials in the College Archives, Mortimer Rare Book Collection, and Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History.

Search Tips

Special Collections Finding Aids - Search over 1,000 archival collections across our repositories.

Getting Started

  • To search, enter your keywords into the search box for Finding Aids above
  • Review your keywords for typos because the system searches for text exactly as entered
  • You can use filters on the right side of the results page to refine your results
  • To browse within a specific collection’s finding aid, use the “Collection Organization” navigation bar to the left of the page (or at the bottom, depending on your screen size)
  • When viewing a finding aid, click on the arrows (>) in the navigation bar to expand each section to see the names of folders or groups of folders under each series or topic
  • Read the Scope and Content notes as well as the Biographical/Historical note on the main page to understand the subjects covered in the collection
  • Read the Conditions Governing Access notes for information about possible collection restrictions

Advanced Search Strategies

  • To search an exact phrase, use double quotes. (e.g. "Mountain Day" or “Smith College Class of 1922”)
  • To exclude a term from your search, put a minus sign in front of it. (For example, the search “social work” -school will find materials with the phrase “social work” but without the word school.)
  • A search for w*m*n will give you results with "woman" "women" "womyn" "wimmin", etc.

Discover Advanced - This is the best place to find books and periodicals. Discover Advanced also searches archival collections and links out to finding aids.

Getting Started

  • Search by  keyword, author, title, or subject terms using the drop-down menu
  • Review your keywords for typos because the system searches for text exactly as entered
  • Click the title links to learn more about Smith’s unique holdings in the library catalog record
  • The “Notes” section of the library catalog record includes information about Smith’s unique holdings. They identify:
    • Precisely which issues of individual periodicals we hold
    • Copy-specific features of our books, such as identifiable former owners
  • You can use filters on the left side of the results page to refine your results
  • Results are automatically sorted by “Relevance” and users can sort by date of publication using the dropdown menu on the right side of the screen

Advanced Search Strategies

  • To search an exact phrase, use double quotes. (e.g. "Mountain Day" or “Smith College Class of 1922”)
  • A search for w*m*n will give you results with "woman" "women" "womyn" "wimmin", etc.

Research Guides

Browse our research guides for a head start on areas of strength in our collections. 

  • Guides to individuals help users navigate an array of related collections supporting research on Gloria Steinem and Sylvia Plath.
  • Guides to subjects help users hone in on collections that support research on particular topics, providing contextual information along with links to finding aids and the library catalog.

Digitized Content

In the Finding Aids

Special Collections Finding Aids To review digitized material available for each collection, click on the "View Digital Material" tab for each finding aid.

On the Website

Smith Digital Collections Smith College Special Collections offers digital resources that can assist your research. These resources represent a sampling of the materials in the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, College Archives, and Mortimer Rare Book Collection.
Compass: Digital Collections Digital images from the collections at Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire colleges. Images from Smith College represent materials in the College Archives, Mortimer Rare Book Collection, and Sophia Smith Collection.
Online Exhibits Exhibits on select topics represented in Special Collections. Includes images of collection materials and contextual information.

By Repository

College Archives Digital Collections - Images, online exhibitions, and documentation of significant events in the history of Smith College.

Digitized College Publications - Class Books, curriculum catalogs, Smith Alumnae Quarterly, and other publications produced by Smith College, past and present.

Archive-It Web Archiving - Archived web content for Smith College including the Libraries and Special Collections.

Mortimer Rare Book Collection Selections - A selection of digitized materials pages from various printed books and manuscripts (hosted on Artstor; Smith login required when off-campus).

Woolf Online - A collection of materials related to Virginia Woolf’s writing of “To the Lighthouse,” in the late 1920s. Included are holograph drafts, diary entries and letters, early reviews, selected essays and photographs of the Stephen family, Cornwall and Talland House, all of which inform the setting and characters of the novel.

Digital Scriptorium - The Mortimer Rare Book Collection contributions to the Digital Scriptorium, an educational consortium of American libraries with collections of pre-modern manuscripts or manuscripts made in the tradition of books before printing.

Sophia Smith Collection Digital Collections - Select digitized materials from the SSC and databases featuring digitized SSC material.

Contact Special Collections

Neilson Library 
7 Neilson Drive 
Northampton, MA 01063

 

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