Special Collections Training Manual: Georgia Southern Commons

Student Assistants & Interns

• Prepare files for submission to Georgia Southern Commons
• Submit and revise records as directed by Special Collections staff
• Report platform issues to Special Collections staff

Special Collections Staff

• Select and provide project documents and files for upload to Georgia Southern Commons
• Consult with the Georgia Southern Commons Team on platform structure and development
• Direct the work assignments for Student Assistant projects

Georgia Southern Commons Team

• Provide Georgia Southern Commons platform technical support including access and administrators
• Facilitate Georgia Southern Commons platform structure development including adding new pages, adjusting configuration for existing pages and assisting with suppressing or publishing pages

Georgia Southern Commons is an open-access digital repository that collects, archives, and disseminates the intellectual and creative output of the University’s faculty, staff, students, and community partners. Georgia Southern Commons hosts contributions from across the campus and the community, including campus documents and publications, faculty and student research, conferences, journals, research data, news, and more

Digitized and Digitally-Born Special Collections for both campus collections are housed in Georgia Southern Commons University. 

Georgia Southern Commons is organized into Communities and Collections.

Communities are academic or campus units such as College of Education, Department of History, or Zach S. Henderson Library.

Collections are groups of digital objects that are similar to one another. Examples include: Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Finding Aids, or Peace Officers Association of Georgia collection. 

Basic Search
The basic search box, found in the upper left of every page, allows you to search in Georgia Southern Commons or across all Georgia Southern Commons Repositories. You can also search within a collection if you navigate to that collection.

• Enter your search terms in the textbox
• Choose from “this collection,” “this repository” or “across all repositories.”

Advanced Search
The “Advanced Search” box, found in the upper left of every page (underneath the “Search” text boxes), can be used to search on a variety of fields. You can search on one field or an unlimited number of fields. After submitting appropriate terms to textboxes, you can filter your search by:

• Entering beginning and ending dates
• Choose from “this collection,” “this repository” or “across all repositories
• ”Sort by “Relevance” or “Publication Date”

Select Browse All Collections from the Georgia Southern Commons homepage. 

• Expand specific communities (including its associated collections) by selecting the "+" to the right of the community title. 
• Select a collection to view by clicking on the hyperlink