HELP WITH OHQ

Showing and Hiding Portlets: Display the sections you need.
Search
Keyword Indexing: What can be searched.
Simple Search: Enter keywords and go.
Advanced Search: Focus your search by selecting Ontario places, subjects, formats, and other criteria.
Search Results: Navigate the results of your search.
Result Detail Portlet: View, print or email a record.
Printing and Email: Print or email a record or search results.
Viewing Large Images: Use the image viewer.
Save to My Research: Save records for the duration of your session.
Technical Help

Showing and Hiding Portlets
The OHQ uses BEA WebLogic portal technology.  Portal technology provides a way of organizing information from a variety of sources.  It allows users to view each application or Web page in its own window, called a portlet.

Portlets can be hidden and unhidden depending whether you need them or not. Click on  to show the portlet or on to hide it.

Search
In the Research Area, you can search the OHQ by keyword using either Simple Search or Advanced Search.

Keyword Indexing
For digitized documents, you can search for keywords in the following fields: title, creator, creator role, date, collection, subject, geographic coverage, language, publisher, format, record number and institution.         

Simple Search
In the Research Area — Search section at the bottom of the page, type a word or words in the Type in Keywords search box, and click Search.

• By default, a search for multiple words will retrieve records containing all of the words. For example, typing letter upper canada displays records containing "letter" and "upper" and "canada".
• Search terms are not case sensitive, using upper or lower case when you type your search will not affect your results.
• If your search finds more than 200 items, results could take more time to appear. If the message "Too many results" appears, try narrowing your search using the Advanced Search. If the following options appear, select one: Show limited results (displays more quickly), show all results (takes longer to display).

Advanced Search
In the Research Area — Search section at the bottom of the page, click More options in Advanced Search to select Advanced Search.

Type a word or words in the Type in Keywords search box and specify the following options (if applicable):

• Time period: Select a time period to search or leave the default (all time periods).
  The system defaults to the time period studied in the grade you are in. For example, in grade 8 it defaults to 1890s-1920s.
• Ontario places: Select a single municipality or region from the drop down list or leave the default (any Ontario place).        
• Subjects: Select one or more subjects or leave the default (any subject). Click Full Subject Index to display a complete subject index, where you can click on any subject to search the database for that term.
• Format: Select one or more formats or leave the defaults (any books, ephemera, manuscripts, maps or pictures).              

 Search Results
Search results appear in a portlet below the Search box. Click on the image thumbnail or title to see a larger image with detailed information in the Result Detail portlet.

• If your search finds more than 200 items, results could take more time to appear.
• If the message "Too many results" appears, try narrowing your search using the Advanced Search.
• If the following options appear, select one: Show limited results (displays more quickly), show all results (takes longer to display). Click a tab to display the documents of the format you selected. Click the All tab to display all search results at the same time.

Click Save in My Research to save items.  A new portlet (My Research) remembers the items you have selected until the end of your current session. Click Show to see the items you have saved in this session or to e-mail them to yourself in HTML format if you want to keep them after you end this session.

Result Detail Portlet
In a list of search or browse results, clicking on a digital image thumbnail or a record title opens the Result Detail portlet. In this portlet, you can:

• See the complete item record.
• Click View larger image to display a larger version of the digital image. 
• Click View transcription to display a transcription of the text (if one is available).
• Click on page numbers in the View Item section above the item record to jump to other pages in the document.
• Click View Terms of Use to see how you can use the document. 
• Click Print Research Items to print the image, the description, the transcription (if one is available) or all three.
• Click Save in My Research to save the items you have selected until the end of your current session.
• Click Send to Email to email the item to yourself in HTML format, which allows you to keep the document when this session ends.  

• To print the assignment, click Print Assignment Area in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
• To print detailed item information, click Print Result in the Result portlet. A pop-up window asks you to choose what you would like to print (image, description, transcription) and allows you to preview what you will send to the printer.
• To print one page of search results, click Print this page located above the search results.
• To print all search results, click Print all search results located above the search results.
• You can also print the appendices and the teacher packages, or you can click Download Teacher Package to save it to your computer in PDF format.

Email
To email documents, click Send to email, which allows you to keep the document when this session ends.

Viewing Large Images
Large image files, such as maps and atlas pages, automatically open in a viewer that allows you to magnify the images. You may wish to download the ExpressView Browser Plug-in (also known as MrSID) from www.lizardtech.com .

Save to My Research
To save records for the duration of your session, click Save in My Research, beside search results and in the Result Detail portlet to open a My Research portlet at the bottom of the screen. It lists the records you have saved in your My Research during this session. When you close this session, all items you have saved in the My Research section will disappear, they will not be displayed there on your next visit.

Technical Help

• We recommend using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or Netscape 7, or higher to view this site. 
• For further technical information please contact us at ohq@torontopubliclibrary.ca