Guide to Evans Digital

The Seeley G. Mudd Library

A Guide to
Early American Imprints Series I: Evans (1639-1800)
Early American Imprints Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)

Please note: the links to the help below will not work unless you have opened Evans or Shaw-Shoemaker first in another window.

Description: Evans: based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans, covering 1639-1800. Evans Digital contains more than 37,000 works.
Shaw-Shoemaker: based on Shaw and Shoemaker's continuation of Evans work, provides access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century

Use for: An important resource for every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th- and early 19th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, temperance, witchcraft, and a multitude of other topics.

Search options:
Simple Search and Advanced Search. Advanced Search, described below, is recommended. Pull-down search options let you search

in Citation Text
in Title
in Subjects
in Genres
in Author
in Place of Publication
in Publisher
in Document Number.
Advanced Search also gives you the ability to search All Text and Date.

Within both Advanced and Simple searches, you are given the options to browse by Genre, Subjects, Author, History of Printing, Place of Publication, and Language. After initial browsing, you can search within a browsing category, or browse further. See the Search Fields help for more ideas.

Truncation: ? = single character wildcard
* = multiple character wildcard
Use ? as many times as needed. You can use it in searches like wom?n to find the terms woman or women. It is also useful for finding words with the English long "s", which was written with a character similar to our "f", for example, absolute - abfolute - ab?olute. See the help on Word Variants and Wildcard Searches for more information.

Boolean: AND, OR, NOT, ADJ[x] (search terms appear within x words of each other and in the same order as you typed them), and NEAR[x] (search terms appear within x words of each other, in any order). Where not specified, x defaults to one word. See the Operators help for more information.

Phrase searching: Use either the ADJ[x] search, or put quotation marks around a phrase, as in "new world"

Printing/Email: For citations, click on the Print Full Citation. A separate window will open containing the reformatted text. To print the page your are looking at, click on Print Pge. If you want to print multiple pages, click on Download Pages. A separate window pops up that lets you select the pages you want or specify a range of pages. Click on the Download button and an Adobe Acrobat version of the file will open.

Comments:
Many more options are available than are described here, for example, you can view a search history. See the options on the search pages as well as the Search Help for more ideas and information.

You may find the help on how to cite useful when you include material in a bibliography.

Revised: 10-May-2006
Gretchen Revie

Description:	Evans: based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans, covering 1639-1800. Evans Digital contains more than 37,000 works. Shaw-Shoemaker: based on Shaw and Shoemaker's continuation of Evans work, provides access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century
Use for:	An important resource for every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th- and early 19th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, temperance, witchcraft, and a multitude of other topics.
Search options:	Simple Search and Advanced Search. Advanced Search, described below, is recommended. Pull-down search options let you search in Citation Text in Title in Subjects in Genres in Author in Place of Publication in Publisher in Document Number. Advanced Search also gives you the ability to search All Text and Date. Within both Advanced and Simple searches, you are given the options to browse by Genre, Subjects, Author, History of Printing, Place of Publication, and Language. After initial browsing, you can search within a browsing category, or browse further. See the Search Fields help for more ideas.
Truncation:	? = single character wildcard * = multiple character wildcard Use ? as many times as needed. You can use it in searches like wom?n to find the terms woman or women. It is also useful for finding words with the English long "s", which was written with a character similar to our "f", for example, absolute - abfolute - ab?olute. See the help on Word Variants and Wildcard Searches for more information.
Boolean:	AND, OR, NOT, ADJ[x] (search terms appear within x words of each other and in the same order as you typed them), and NEAR[x] (search terms appear within x words of each other, in any order). Where not specified, x defaults to one word. See the Operators help for more information.
Phrase searching:	Use either the ADJ[x] search, or put quotation marks around a phrase, as in "new world"
Printing/Email:	For citations, click on the Print Full Citation. A separate window will open containing the reformatted text. To print the page your are looking at, click on Print Pge. If you want to print multiple pages, click on Download Pages. A separate window pops up that lets you select the pages you want or specify a range of pages. Click on the Download button and an Adobe Acrobat version of the file will open.
Comments:	Many more options are available than are described here, for example, you can view a search history. See the options on the search pages as well as the Search Help for more ideas and information. You may find the help on how to cite useful when you include material in a bibliography.