SEARCHING THE COLLECTION


When you search the Isaac Mayer Wise Digital Archive, you are searching the full text of the items within the collection. Please keep in mind that ALL searches are case sensitive and are keyword searches.

• Enter a word into the search box at the top right of any Isaac Mayer Wise Digital Archive page and click "Go" to do a simple keyword search of the entire collection.
• You may limit your search to a particular category of the collection (Correspondence, Books, Manuscripts, etc.) by selecting one from the drop-down menu to the right of the search box.
• To search for an exact phrase, type quotation marks around the exact phrase you wish to search for - for example, "Father Abraham".
• NOTE TO RESEARCHERS: The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on The Israelite, which was digitized from 35mm microfilm, provides about 60-70% accuracy. Therefore, researchers should be aware that not all searched terms may be found by the search engine even if they are extant in the text.

After completing your search, the main frame of the webpage will display a list of the items containing the search term(s); each entry in this list contains a citation to the item as well as a "View" button linking to the actual digital item.

The default display is 10 results per page, but this can be adjusted by the user to 25, 50, 100, or All. In order to see the next set of results, click the "Next" button; to see an earlier set of results, click "Previous." Clicking on the "First" button will bring the user to the beginning of the result set; clicking on the "Last" button will bring the user to the end of the result set.

When you click on the "View" button to link to the digital item, you will get one of two displays.

• Results from the "Correspondence" and "Manuscripts" portions of the I.M. Wise Digital Archive will display in the main frame of the webpage as full text with a digital image of the letter or manuscript on the right; clicking on the image will bring up a larger version of the scanned document in a new window.
  • If your search term is found within a transcribed letter or manuscript, it will not be highlighted in the transcription or the digital item, but can be found by using your browser search tool: from the top bar, click "edit" then "find on this page."
• Results found within the other sections of the digital archive [Hebrew Union College Reports, Books, Contributions to Books, Contributions to Periodicals, Editorials, and Selected Writings on Wise] will open a new window and display as a PDF (portable document format), which can be viewed using Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader (download the free Adobe Reader online at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html).
  • If your computer has the full version of Adobe Acrobat, your searched term(s) should be highlighted within the text. If your searched term was not found within the document, we recommend retyping it into the search box at the top of the Adobe page (without quotation marks if you are doing an exact phrase search). You can also bring up a separate search menu by holding down "Control+Shift+F".
  • If you only have the Reader version, you must retype the term in the search box at the top of the page.
  • If the search term is still not highlighted, the word is in the document, but the pdf viewing software cannot find it. It may be necessary for the researcher to review the entire document to find the pertinent terms.

The advanced search option allows for more powerful and focused searching. Users can check multiple portions of the collection (Correspondence and Books) for simultaneous searching and can enter multiple terms or phrases for "and" or "or" searching. Searches can also be limited to specific years.

Please contact the AJA if you have any problems with searching the Isaac Mayer Wise Digital Archive.