Searching within the UNF Digital Commons is straightforward, but we offer a few tips and features to make the most of the system.
First, remember that underneath the search box within the left pane, you have the option to search within a particular collection in the repository, the entire institutional repository, or to branch out to other repositories also using the Digital Commons platform.
Search results in the UNF Digital Commons may be a result of metadata applied to items (e.g. keywords, LC Subject Headings, dates, geographic locations, art media, titles, and more) as well as any words within full-text documents. All uploaded PDF documents have been enhanced with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for optimal searchability.
Searching a phrase may be helpful in retrieving more relevant results. For example, consider whether you want more hits with all documents or images that contain the words Florida or sunshine somewhere within the full-text or metadata, or is the research need more efficiently met by items that include the phrase "Florida Sunshine" within? Remember that you will need to put quotes around any words you'd like to search as a phrase.
While most items uploaded to the UNF Digital Commons do have an identified creation date, it is important to remember that items from Special Collections and Archives may only have a circa or approximate date. The system is currently unable to sort by circa date range, so know that if a circa date is in the record, sorting is occurring on the date of submission to the repository for that item.
