Browsing

If you have never visited the Arizona Memory Project, it can seem overwhelming and confusing as to where to begin. If you are a fan of rabbit holes, you may want to start by clicking the Browse button in the black toolbar on the left. This will take you to every item, in alphabetical order, on the Arizona Memory Project. Hovering over the item will provide you with the complete title. You can reorder them by when they were added to the site, in reverse alphabetical order, or into a list instead of the default tile view. You can also use the filters on the left to view items by the title's first letter, by item type, or by date.

We've also made a video on how to browse the Arizona Memory Project if you want to learn more.

Collections and Contributors

Another way to explore the site is to start by learning about the different collections that are on the Arizona Memory Project and the contributing institutions that provided them. At the top of the home page, you'll see buttons for Collections and Contributors. These will take you to pages that let you explore the 100 partners and the nearly 400 collections they have contributed since the Arizona Memory Project was launched in 2006. You can also view the Map of Contributing Institutions to see where our Contributors come from. These map pins will take you to the Contributor's page, which will let you explore their collections on the Arizona Memory Project. Or you can Explore by Map, which let's you focus on a specific area or place in Arizona.

On the home page, you'll find the Featured Collections, which will take you to the 5 newest collections on the Arizona Memory Project. You'll find some of our most popular collections there as well, including Arizona Highways Online, Arizona Historical Digital Newspapers, and our Arizona Research Topic pages. New collections and contributors are being added regularly, so make sure to check back often to see what is new.

If you think you or your institution may have materials that fall within the scope of the Arizona Memory Project, you can learn more about becoming a contributor or by reading the Collection Development Policy.

Arizona Research Topics

Our Research Topic pages have collected materials from across the Arizona Memory Project and combined them to create a page of sources on Arizona's people, places, or events. These pages combine all materials that are related to a subject onto one page. You can also find buttons for People, Places, and Events the top of the Arizona Memory Project home page. These pages are constantly being updated and new pages are being created all the time, so be sure to check back regularly for more!

On the People pages, you will find links to Arizona's most famous and infamous residents- from governors and educators, to criminals and heroes. Each page contains materials about or from that person from across the Arizona Memory Project. The Place pages combine materials related to a specific place, whether it be a city or town, a specific building, National Park, mountain, or many more. These items will help you learn more about the places that make Arizona unique. The Event pages highlight items on the Arizona Memory Project that cover a specific event or time period in Arizona history. From wars to wildfires, labor disputes and political controversy, these pages will join materials that will provide multiple views of Arizona events.

Search

You can also use the Search tools to see if we have a specific item or what we may have in the collections related to your subject. All items with text, including images, newspapers, documents, and more, are fully text searchable. From the home page, you can enter a search term and it will search the nearly 200,000 items on the Arizona Memory Project to see if there are any matches. Matches will be returned in the order of relevance to your search term, and hovering over the item will provide you with the complete title. You can reorder them by when they were added to the site, in reverse alphabetical order, or into a list instead of the default tile view. You can also use the filters on the left to view items by the title's first letter, by item type, or by date.

For a more advanced search, you can click the the Search button in the black toolbar on the left. There you can apply filters like item type, where to search (title, fields, or fields AND searchable text), date (for a year, use 01/01/YYYY to 12/31/YYYY), and keywords or exact phrase match. Applying these filters before hitting search will increase the speed of your results. Once the results are displayed, you can reorder them or add additional filters as described above.

If you found an item you'd like to share, use the icons on the bottom left of the page to share to an email address or your favorite social media platform. If you want to save an item to use later, you can bookmark an item if you are logged into the Arizona Memory Project by clicking the Star button in the skinny grey toolbar to the left of the item. This will place it in your My Collection page, which is found in the black toolbar to the left.