Tips on Using the Document Library 

The library is in its initial stages of development, so it's a little clunky. We're working to refine it, but for now here are some tips to help you. Starting a Search We recommend starting a search by clicking on the most important term in your search. In most cases this will be the Document Category. For instance, if you're looking for personnel handbooks for large cooperatives, start by clicking Document Category: Personnel. The library will display all Personnel documents. Refining a Search To narrow the results, refine your search by clicking Document Type: Handbook. The library will display all Personnel Handbooks. To further refine, select Workplace Size: Large and the library will display all Personnel Handbooks from Large Workplaces. Right now, it is not possible to search on several fields all at once. You will need to search one field first, then add further refinements to that initial search. How do I start a new search after I've done one search? On the page that displays the results of your search, there should be an orange box in the upper left corner that says "Current Search." This displays the terms you are currently using to search, and next to each term is a little symbol: (-). Clicking on this symbol removes that term from your search. If you remove all search terms, the library will return you to the front search page. How do I display all the documents? Simply leave all the search terms empty and click Submit. This will display all the documents in the library in no particular order. How are documents tagged and categorized? Most documents have as many fields as possible tagged, meaning where we have the information available we labelled the document by category, type, state, workplace size, incorp type, etc. In some cases, we have used multiple tags in one field (for instance, Personnel and Governance). For some documents, some tagging information was not available, so we left one or more fields blank. For instance, if we do not know the incorporation status of the entity contributing the document, that field will be blank. For this reason, it's best to search as generally as possible. What happens when I search by keyword? You can type in a keyword in the Keyword Search and the library will display all documents with that keyword in the title. This can be another way of finding documents. But be careful, because in many cases the document title is more specific than the category, so a keyword search will not display a document whose title doesn't include that keyword, even if it's in your general area of interest.