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Vietnam War Veterans: Resources in the Veterans History Project

Using Search Facets

When working with the Veterans History Project Collection online, you will have the ability to narrow the set of collections displaying on the screen (e.g., search results) using a series of filtering topics displaying in the left column on the screen. Under the column header “Refine your results,” these search facets offer multiple options for filtering VHP collections by format, demographics, and other topical factors.

Getting Started

Starting from the full set of Veterans History Project Collections, you can narrow the results set to veterans who served during the Vietnam War by selecting the "Vietnam War, 1961 to 1975" facet under the "Wars & Conflicts" topic as shown below:

screenshot of Veterans History Project collection page

Narrowing Your Search

Once you have limited the set of collections to "Vietnam War, 1961 to 1975," you can further narrow the results using additional search facets. Select the blue “plus sign" to expand the search facet, then select any of the options from the drop-down list that appears, as shown in the screenshot below. Please note that the following facets are expanded by default: Original Format, Online Format, Wars & Conflicts, Services Branches, and Locations of Service.

screenshot of Veterans History Project collection page

Revealing All Facets Within a Category

On the search results display, each expanded facet will display only the top 10 topics by default. Most facets—such as Locations of Service, Unit of Service, and Organization/Affiliation (which displays donor organizations)—have many more topics available for filtering beyond the top 10. In order to reveal all of the topics within a facet category, select "More [name of facet]":

screenshot of Veterans History Project collection page

Sorting a Full List of Facet Topics

After selecting “More [name of facet],” you will be presented with a screen showing all facets under a category listed in order of relevance (the facets with the most matches in the collection will listed first). You can also choose to display the results in alphabetical order by selecting the radio button next to “Alphabetically.” The bracketed number following the facet indicates how many results match that facet.

screenshot of Veterans History Project collection page