How to use this content

Browsing the Collection
After clicking the Accept button, you will be able to select the collection you would like to review. Thumbnail images will appear in alphabetical order by title for each collection. You will be able to browse the collection, or you may use the search function to find a particular category of images or specific images.

Searches
Searches can be conducted only from within a collection, and search results would reflect items only in that collection. There currently is no method for searching all collections with one search. However, the basic search function allows you to search a collection using a keyword or phrase. To search for an image using a key word (e.g. bridge), type the word in the Title or Description search field and click the Query button.

If you do not know the exact name or spelling, you can also do a wild card search by placing a % sign before and/or after the word or partial spelling of the word. See examples in the descriptions below.

Image ID Search
If you know the image ID number, you can click on the Image ID button at the top of the search function page, and enter the exact ID number, followed by .jpg (e.g. 20558.jpg).

Advanced Search
The advanced search function allows you to search the photo collection by using multiple fields, including, title, description, county, city, and route number. You may enter a word, phrase or number in the search box or enter data into more than one field to further narrow your search of the collection.

Search Field descriptions

TITLE	Usually one or two words. If you know the exact word(s), enter it here. If you're not sure of the spelling, enter the first few letters surrounded by % signs. e.g. enter road or %roa% .
DESCRIPTION	Enter word(s) describing the photo. e.g., %us hwy 30%. This will bring up all photos with US Hwy 30 in the description. You will need to use the % signs in this search field.
PHOTO ID	If you know the photo number, enter it here.
CITY	Enter the city name here. If you're not sure of the spelling, enter the first letters surrounded by % signs, e.g., Keokuk or %Keo%.
DIGITAL (Y / N)	If you are searching for photos that are not digital, enter N. Most photos in the collections are digital.
DATE	Use MM-DD-YYYY format for search by date.
COUNTY	Select County from drop-down menu.
STATE	Select State from drop-down menu.
ROUTE TYPE	Select Route Type from drop-down menu.
ROUTE#	Enter route number here.
RTE# PREFIX	Enter the letter prefix to the route number, e.g., %R% , %W%.
ALL COUNTIES	Search by Iowa county number.

NOTE: Many fields do not contain information for the historical collections, so doing a search by some fields may not render any results. Additionally, several fields have an AND/OR option in which you can enter additional values to narrow the search.

How to Download Photographs
This procedure assumes that you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer-Version 6 and up, and may vary if you are using another version or browser. All of the photographs are at a high enough resolution that they can be used for making prints or posters, or used in other publishing.

• Click on the name of the collection you wish to open.
• Conduct a search for the specific photos in the collection you are seeking. Thumbnail images of those photos that match your search will be displayed. Thumbnail images are not available for downloading.
• Click the thumbnail of the photo you wish to view and a screen-sized, low-resolution version of the picture will be displayed, along with the information available from our database about the image.
• Click on the link Downloadable Large Resolution Photo at the bottom of the picture (or you can just right-click anywhere on the photo).
• A larger and higher resolution version of the image (using the original resolution) will be displayed. Let the picture completely load (this may take a few minutes if you are using a dialup connection--you probably have a progress bar on the bottom of you browser that will show when the picture has completed loading.)
• Place your mouse pointer anywhere over the picture, right-click, and select Save Picture As from the pop-up menu. If the Save Picture As selection is grayed out, but the selection Show Picture is normal (black), this means that the picture has not completely loaded yet---click on Show Picture to make the menu go away, wait for the picture to finish loading, then start this step over.
• A default file name will be furnished. This confirms that you are downloading the high-resolution version. Change the file name and location so that it will be saved on your computer and click on Save.

This procedure

Lightbox

What's the lightbox?
It's an area where you can store and review photos while you're checking out our collection. It's simple. Here's how it works.

• Perform your search of the collection and thumbnail-sized images matching your search will appear.
• Located adjacent to each thumbnail image is a checkbox. Check the boxes of those images that you want placed in the lightbox. They will be saved for later viewing.
• Once you've completed your search of our site, click on the lightbox link. You will see all of the images you selected.
• Using the lightbox tool you can compare images and narrow your selection to those that you really want to take the time necessary for downloading.

Note: Items stored in the lightbox will remain in the lightbox when you exit the site and will be available the next time you visit the photo collection, if you use the same computer to access the photo collection.

In order to set up your own lightbox, you do need to make sure your browser's security and privacy settings allow for the use of "cookies." Normally your default setting will allow for the use of cookies.