HomeUser Guide

User Guide

The University Archive at the CSUSM Library online exhibit of "CSUSM Student Newspapers • 1990 - 2015 • The First 25 Years" provides multiple ways to view high-quality PDFs of twenty-five years of student newspapers. This site user guide will share some hints to enhance your user experience.

Search
There are two main search selections available on the site. A search box appears on the lower left of every page. These search parameters can be expanded by clicking on the ellispe and making your selections. 

Advanced search as well as 'browse by tag' options are available by choosing Browse Issues and clicking on the appropriate tab above the issue list.

To search within an issue you have opened, use either crtl+f (PC) or command+f (Mac) to bring up a search box.

Issues may be duplicated in the search results due to coding. Item search looks at tags and the issue description, while File searches the OCR text behind the file. To reduce duplication, the 'item' search can be deselected.

Viewing Newspapers
Clicking on a newspaper picture or “thumbnail” will lead you to the viewable file.

We suggest closing down any open windows and tabs before opening a newspaper file. Some of the PDFs are as large as 50MB and respond best when they have plenty of memory available on your device. 

During our testing phase, Google Chrome and FireFox provided the best user experiences for viewing large files.

Site Vocabulary
Collection: A curated group of items. For this exhibit, collections have been created as academic year groupings of newspapers.

Exhibit: A curated visual grouping of items, represented by thumbnail portraits. Exhibits have been created as academic year groupings of newspapers.

File: The high-quality PDF of a newspaper issue.

Items: The record of an edition of the newspaper.

Thumbnail: Visual representation of the newspaper, used as a button to move in the site.