This week on the blog, we’ll use Open Collections to search for some images. @VanBigTrees submitted this question on Twitter:

Let’s get started!

First, we’ll go to Open Collections at https://open.library.ubc.ca/

From here, we can start a search a few ways. Today, we’ll explore using the collections, and next week, we’ll work with keyword searches. First, let’s select the “Browse by Collection” button to see if there are any collections that might be helpful to us:

I chose to scroll through these collections and open up the Capilano Timber Company Fonds:

Since I’m looking for photos of old-growth forests, a logging company might feel counter-intuitive. One strategy among many is to search for the opposite of what you’re looking for: a logging company would need documentation of what was there before they cut it down.

This is the front page of the collection: Here you can see dates, subjects, and if you scroll, a brief overview of the collection. Since I don’t know what’s here, I’m going to search all the items in the collection; type an asterisk (*) in the search bar.

Here is the list of everything in the collection- all 151 items. Since I’m looking for images of forests, I’ll see what my options are in the “Subject” field over on the left hand side.

The most common subject, “Cedar Trees”, sounds like a good place to start. I’ll select that and then scroll through the images.

I like one entitled “Capilano Cedar”

An old-growth forest photo!! Come back next week for the next stage of the search: using subject terms and keywords.