Need Help?
Read this page for tips, tricks and general information about using the Collex interface in NINES.
Searching NINES
Because NINES searches are powered by a faceted browser, short, one-word queries can be more helpful than phrases. Adding new terms, or constraints, allows you to narrow in on the materials most relevant to your research. Initial constraints include title words, author, editor and publisher names, as well as four-digit years. Once you've begun your search, be sure to check the right-hand column for other ways to browse NINES materials:
- Collections: Large archives of primary source materials
- Journals: Select periodicals (both Free Culture and Subscription-based) that have been aggregated in NINES
- Library Catalogs: Citations from select libraries with robust collections in nineteenth-century studies. Our goal is to add full-text searching to these items as libraries continue to digitize their collections.
- Presses: Beginning with the University of Virginia Press, NINES aggregates materials from traditional and digital imprints.
- Scholarly Projects: These peer-reviewed resources represent the best of digital scholarship on the web.
- Genre: To enable better browsing, NINES contributors are required to assign at least one genre to their digital objects from an approved list.
- Free Culture: NINES is committed to encouraging and sustaining open-source, open access projects. Add this constraint to peruse freely available content.
Basic free-form searches provide a search-suggest drop-down menu as you type, showing you possible returns in the index, as well as the number of digital objects in which they are referenced. This allows you to discover alternate spellings or similar terms. If you would like to select one, simply move you cursor down the list, click on it, and it will appear in the search blank.
For best results when searching for proper names, start your search by typing the subject's last name (e.g.: "Darwin").
Saved Searches
Although the NINES search interface is available to all users, setting up a free account grants you access to a number of useful options and tools. Saved searches allow you to keep track of your most frequent or relevant searches with one click, or share them with your peers. And, because we save the constraints you used (not the content of the search itself), your saved searches will be updated with new material every time a new resource is added to NINES. Your saved searches can be found in your personalized My 9s page.
Sample saved search: "Victorian Art".
Collecting Objects
When you are signed in to your account, you will have the option to collect items of interest to you. Once collected, you can tag these items, discuss them with others in the forum, and exhibit them in an essay or annotated bibliography of your own.
Contact
If you have other questions or need help, please e-mail us at: $$$$.