Search Help

How does this work?
There are many ways to search the collections of the Freedom Archives. Below is a brief guide that will help you conduct effective searches. Note, anytime you search for anything in the Freedom Archives, the first results that appear will be our digitized items. Information for items that have yet to be scanned or yet to be digitized can still be viewed, but only by clicking on the show link that will display the hidden (non-digitized) items. If you are interested in accessing these non-digitized materials, please email info@freedomarchives.org.
Exploring the Collections without the Search Bar
Under the heading Browse By Collection, you’ll notice most of the Freedom Archives’ major collections. These collections have an image as well as a short description of what you’ll find in that collection. Click on that image to instantly explore that specific collection.
Basic Searching
You can always type what you’re looking for into the search bar. Certain searches may generate hundreds of results, so sometimes it will help to use quotation marks to help narrow down your results. For instance, searching for the phrase Black Liberation will generate all of our holdings that contain the words Black and Liberation, while searching for “Black Liberation” (in quotation marks) will only generate our records that have those two words next to each other.
Advanced Searching
The Freedom Archives search site also understands Boolean search logic. Click on this link for a brief tutorial on how to use Boolean search logic. Our search function also understands “fuzzy searches.” Fuzzy searches utilize the (*) and will find matches even when users misspell words or enter in only partial words for the search. For example, searching for liber* will produce results for liberation/liberate/liberates/etc.
Keyword Searches
You’ll notice that under the heading KEYWORDS, there are a number of words, phrases or names that describe content. Sometimes these are also called “tags.” Clicking on these words is essentially the same as conducting a basic search.

Search Results

Prison Focus Prison Focus
Publisher: California Prison FocusYear: 2013Volume Number: No. 39 SpringFormat: PeriodicalCollection: Prison Focus
Cover Story- The Pathology of Patriarchy: A Search for Clues at the Scene of the Crime
Prison Focus Prison Focus
Publisher: California Prison FocusYear: 2013Volume Number: No. 40 SummerFormat: PeriodicalCollection: Prison Focus
Cover Story- Solitary Confinement is known Torture: Yet officials pretend not to know and play the debating game to curb protest and continue to practice is US prisons
Prison Action News Prison Action News
Publisher: Anarchist Black CrossYear: 2013Volume Number: Vol. 6-2 AugustFormat: PeriodicalCollection: Anarchist Black Cross (ABC)
Tables of Contents: New Prison Groups and Programs; Prison Group Updates; The Almighty Pen and Paper: Grievances and Legal Work; Direct Action/ Non-Compliance; Solidarity: Working Across the Bars; Commentary and Calls to Action
Prison Action News Prison Action News
Publisher: Anarchist Black CrossYear: 2013Volume Number: Vol. 6-1 FebruaryFormat: PeriodicalCollection: Anarchist Black Cross (ABC)
Table of Contents: New Prison Groups and Programs; Prison Group Updates; The Almighty Pen and Paper: Grievances and Legal Work; Direct Action/ Non-Compliance; Solidarity: Working Across the Bars; Commentary and Calls to Action