Getting Started

The Archives Florida database contains finding aids (guides) for organizational records and personal papers collections in many archives in Florida. This is a growing database as new finding aids and new contributing institutions are added all the time. A list of archives that have contributed finding aids to this database is available click here. These finding aids may be searched or browsed collectively or may be searched or browsed by individual contributing archives. To browse all of the finding aids, click here. To search the entire Archives Florida database, go to click here.

Search Tips

Finding aids collections in Archives Florida can be searched using either the Basic Search or Advanced Search option.

Basic Search

If you choose Basic Search, make sure the "Select Collection" option is set to "Archives Florida" then enter a one or more words or phrase in the search box. You can enter as many words as you like. The default search assumes you wish to retrieve all records that have ANY of the words or phrases you entered Optionally, you can also choose to search for this word or phrase as:

• Contains (default choice, looks for the word or phrase anywhere in the full text and citation data for finding aids)
• Exact (retrieves records only for items that contain all for the words or phrases in exactly the order you entered them, and does not assume you want to retrieve records that contain any of the words)
• Starts with (only retrieves records where the words or phrases you entered occur in exactly the order you entered them, as part of the title of the item)

Example:
If you entered the words Johnson papers and leave the search option as "Contains" the database will retrieve all records where either of these words occur anywhere in the full text or bibliographic citation for the finding aid. Choosing "Exact" will retrieve only records that have the phrase Johnson papers exactly as you entered those terms. Choosing the "Starts with" option would only retrieve records for finding aids where Johnson papers occurs as the beginning of the title for the finding aid.

Advanced Search

Searching strategies and options for Advanced Search are similar to Basic Search options, except you can also choose to limit your search to:

• Title
• Creator
• Subject
• Citation only (Title, subject, date, author, etc.)
• Full text only (No citation, just full-text of finidng aid documents)

Searches also can be restricted to Media Types:

• Text
• Image
• Audio
• Video

or File Formats such as PDF, TXT, XML, etc.
However, when searching Archives Florida for finding aids, it is recommended to leave these search options at the default values.