Historical Construction Equipment Association

How to Use the Historical Construction Equipment Association Archives Catalog

1. Decide what you want to look up. The database will look for everything you enter.

2. The database uses standard industry nomenclature for identifying machinery. For instance, “earthmover” is not used to identify types of machinery, and “steam shovel” refers solely to steam-powered, cable-operated power shovels. If you’re not familiar with construction machinery nomenclature, you can determine the proper term for your machine from the Equipment Identification photo galleries of our Digital Content section. Each heading under Equipment Identification calls up images of that basic type of machine.

3. Due to difficulties in distinguishing singular words from plurals (i. e., “tractor” versus “tractors”), only the singular is used in the database. This makes for odd grammar, but calls up all instances of the desired word.

4. Choose your search method. Your options are:

The [Search!] window, which is discussed below.
[Collections] produces lists of links to collection titles, sorted alphabetically by title. Following the links calls up lists of their contents, in interactive or “printer-friendly” formats.
[Digital Content] is a searchable library of digital images.
[Record Groups] produces a list of links to collections classified and subclassified by type (i. e., manufacturers, then equipment manufacturers). Clicking on the listed collections calls up the same information as the [Collection Title] search.
[Subjects] produces a list of subjects cited in the collections. There are thousands of them. They are not indicative of what any given manufacturer produced; rather, they are topics, including types of machines, other manufacturers, owner names, construction projects, locales, and so forth that are mentioned prominently in the records. Clicking on a subject lists how many collections discuss that subject; information about printed matter is obtained by opening the [Records and Manuscripts] link, and digital images are accessed by clicking the [Digital Images and Records] link.
[Creators] opens the biographical and historical information for each creator of records for which this information is available.

5. Use the [SEARCH!] window to search for specific words, terms and combinations thereof.

Use “quotation marks” to search for specific phrases.
Entering singular terms will not call up plurals, and plurals will not call up singulars.
If the model designation of the machine you’re researching is a single letter or a common combination of letters (i. e., “DA”), it will be preceded by “Model” or, rarely, “Type,” in order for your search to call up only that instead of all occurrences of the letter(s). so for an Allis-Chalmers K crawler tractor, search for “Model K.”
The same applies to model numbers, where the model number is used in different forms for related machines. For example, Caterpillar built 12, 112 and 212 motor graders; to search only for the 12, search for “No. 12.”
State names are spelled out, to avoid calling up all occurrences of their two –letter abbreviations.

6. Checking [Include Box Lists] when the search is launched displays a list of links to each item in which the term being searched for appears, arranged by collection and file classification. Archon is not without its quirks, and this is one of them: If a result is found under, for instance, five levels of classification, it counts each level as a result. If Archon says there are ten results and only eight are listed, that’s why.

The entries given for each collection will indicate every instance of the words you searched for. Clicking on the collection name produces the data that searching individual [Collection Titles], as described above, will produce. The links following the collection name are to different levels of classification in the collection. Different links in a collection can open to different places in the list of records for the collection, any of which will open to a point, usually the first, in the list at which what you searched for is cited. If you open any of these links, the word or words you searched for will be highlighted in color, so all you have to do is scroll through the list and see where the desired information appears.
Repeat this process for as many criteria as you want to use. The more criteria you enter, the more refined the results will be. The fewer you use, the broader the results.

7. If the results aren’t what you wanted, try modifying your criteria. You’re also more than welcome to contact the HCEA, as we have additional resources that are not available on line.

Remember, the online catalog is a relatively new project, and it will take years to document everything we have in it. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, check back!