Welcome back, students, to the first week of school!
At Special Collections & Archives (SC&A), we wanted to make sure that our website redesign would be ready in time for the students’ return. On our homepage at http://sca.gmu.edu/, we now have a navigation bar located on the left side of the browser to help users find specific information more quickly. Towards the center of the page, the user has the ability to search through all of our finding aids by entering keywords, access the University Libraries catalog from a different tab as well as links to our finding aids, which are listed alphabetically or by subject. On the right side of the browser, there is a rotating slideshow showcasing highlights from our collections, and a display of our hours and most recent blog posts at the bottom. For any questions about SC&A and our collections, please feel free to chat with us in Ask An Archivist in the bottom, right-hand corner.
We would also like to point out that on our new site, users may now find all of our digitized collections more easily. We feature digitized collections on our main Digitized Collections page, as well as links to digitized collections on LUNA – the University Libraries’ digital repository and on MARS (Mason Archival Repository Service) – George Mason University’s institutional digital repository. From our Rare & Antiquarian Books page, viewers can read descriptions about some of the many rare books that we offer in our holdings.
For faculty, staff, students, or members from the general public who are conducting research in our reading room for the first time, print out and complete all of the required forms from the Access Policies section of our Visit Us page. There is a form for researchers to fill in once during registration, and forms for researchers who would like to use digital cameras in the reading room, or use SC&A materials in published works in print, web, or video.
Continuing to improve our website and establishing a presence online is important to us. If you have any suggestions or comments for making our site better, please let us know at speccoll@gmu.edu
