Historical State Search

A single access point for special collections resources on the history of NC State.

Overview

Historical State has been a resource for documenting the history of NC State. Historical State Search will create a dynamic website to allow searching across all digital collections related to NC State history without having to go to external sites. Types of content indexed will include still images, collection guides, course catalogs, audio recordings and events. Features will include keyword searching, faceted browsing, and timelines. Pathfinder pages and other curated content will have online administrative interfaces for curating the content of those pages and keeping it fresh.

How We Did It

Historical State Search is a Ruby on Rails application utilizing the Blacklight plugin for Solr-powered search. A MySQL database is used for managing curated content like events. A rake task harvests most of the content from our digital assets management database. An integrated pageturner using Solr displays multi-page documents.

Team