This page provides an alternative method of searching our inventories. It uses a Java program to search the same finding aids as the Index form linked to the title at the top of this page. If you have already made a search using that form, you will find nothing new with this one. There are some advantages, though, to using the form on this page: it allows you to accumulate answers from a series of searches, to delete lines that do not interest you, and to move your answers to an editing window where you can make changes, comments, or additions before you cut and paste the information into a file of your own or an email message.

This program searches for whatever words you indicate. It is not case-sensitive, and it will find the words you type regardless of the order in which they appear. If you type William Tecumseh Sherman it will also find records that say Sherman, William Tecumseh.

If you truncate words, the program will find all records that have the letters you have included. If you type Sheed Fr it will find Francis Sheed, Frank Sheed, and Fr. Sheedy.

You can see the particular inventory in which a line appears by following the link represented by the collection code. If you want to keep only lines that contain a certain word or phrase, you can choose the 'Retain' option type the word or phrase. Press the 'Retain' button and the program will eliminate lines that you do not want. Type Tecumseh and it will eliminate every line that does NOT contain Tecumseh.

Once you have a satisfactory list, you can press the 'Clip' button. This will copy the list into a clipboard. Press the arrow button to edit the text in the clipboard. You can add your own comments, paste the text into documents or into programs that will let you print it or email it, and generally have your way with it. (You will have to use the key combinations in your operating system to cut and paste, since the search form has no menu system. For example, you might mark text with the mouse and use Ctrl-X to cut it, Ctrl-C to copy it into the system's clipboard, or Ctrl-V to insert it in a new location.) Press the arrow button to see the grey box again and search for something else.

If you would like to see the whole inventory associated with one of the lines in the grey box, you can generally do so by clicking one of the lines twice. Each time you do this, you will open a new browser window; you can have several open at the same time. (If you do not have a high-resolution display, the new browser window may hide the old one; close or minimize the new window to see the old one again.)

If the form goes blank (or components of it disappear) you can restore it by paging down to read this instruction and then paging up again.