Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is a portal?
2. What is in this portal?
3. Who maintains this portal?
4. Who is allowed access to the portal?
5. What am I allowed to do with the content of this portal?
6. Who is in charge of portal content? Can I add to the portal?
7. I'm lost, where do I start?
8. How do I open this file?
9. How can I get help for an issue not covered in this documentation?

1. A portal is an entry or gateway to a large collection of digital documents. The portal archives, organizes, and facilitates access to a variety of resources.

2. The Portal to Texas History contains over 25,000 pages of primary source materials, and includes items such as maps, books, manuscripts, diaries, photographs, and letters.

3. The Portal is maintained by the Digital Projects Unit of the University of North Texas Libraries.

4. The Portal is open to public access. The primary groups served are educators, students, historians and researchers.

5. Please see our section regarding copyright and legal issues.

6. Portal content is administered by various groups, under the supervision of the UNT Libraries' Digital Projects Unit. If you know of materials that you feel should be added to the portal, please contact Dreanna Belden.

7. See our General Usage guidelines.

8. See our File Types and Viewing Information section.

9. Please see our contact info page, and find the library associate most closely associated to your issue.

General Usage

There are two basic ways to use the portal. The first, and most powerful, method is to search, based on different criteria. The default screen for the Researchers' Portal is that of the search interface. Clicking the "Home" label on the top bar will return you to this search screen at any time.

Searching is simple. Enter words relating to your search in the form labeled "Enter Search Terms" and click the "Search" button to the left to run your search. You will be taken to a page where the results of your search are listed.

In order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of your search, there are several options provided for refining your query. Directly below the search field are check boxes which allow you to specify which fields to examine. "Full-text" is the most comprehensive, actually searching the content of the entries. For faster, and often more useful results, consider searching based on title, author, subject or keywords.

There are also some more advanced options for limiting searches. Searches can be confined to a particular document format, collection, contributing institution or document type. Entries that fall within particular dates can also be specifically searched.

The second method of using the portal is to browse the entries based on pre-arranged categories. Entries are catalogued under collections, contributing institutions, and a subject browse. By browsing down the hierarchy, a user can narrow their topic until they find useful information. While not as direct as an actual search, browsing is useful when actual search terms are unknown. Browsing is also an excellent way to sample the content of the Portal.

File Types and Viewing Information

Entries into the portal may be stored in a variety of formats, depending upon the content of the entries. Typically, the file type will be chosen to best represent and present the data contained.

Different formats are represented by various icons or pictures.

Jpeg images are used for actual photographic or image data. They are viewable directly from your browser, and are represented by a miniature thumbnail of the actual image. Clicking on the thumbnail will take you to an intermediate display size. Clicking on the intermediate image allows you to view a full-size jpeg (warning: these may be quite large and may not be advisable for slower connections).

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) files are used to display text markup. They are directly viewable by your web browser. Note that HTML files may contain embedded images of various types. Please see the notes for particular types for display tips.

TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) files are similar to HTML, though more adapted to the display of documents. The portal will automatically convert them to HTML for view in your browser. Jpeg images of actual document pages will often be made available.

Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) files are used to display formatted text and graphics in an accurate and reproducible manner. These files require a PDF reader to be viewed. For Windows or MacOS platforms, we recommend the free viewers available directly from Adobe. For the Linux platform, we recommend gv or xpdf.

MP3 (Mpeg Layer 3) audio files are used to hold sound or music. Windows Media Player on the Windows platform, or iTunes for MacOS can decode and play back these files. For Linux, we recommend XMMS.

Microsoft Word files are formatted text and graphic files. Free viewers for Windows and MacOS are available for download from Microsoft. For Linux users, we recommend using OpenOffice to view these files.