Explore with Ease: Finding Aids Now Available for Our Special Collections

7/3/25

Archival collections often contain a wide variety of materials, including photographs, correspondence, maps, scrapbooks, ephemera, and rare publications, that reflect the cultural, historical, and artistic life of a community. At the Miami-Dade Public Library System (Library), these materials are preserved within our Special Collections.

To make these resources easier to access and explore, whether you’re an experienced researcher or simply curious, the Library now offers Finding Aids – descriptive tools that help users navigate and discover items within these collections – available through our Special Collections webpage.

As we continue progressing on adding work from our major archival collections –Genealogy, Florida, Cuba, and The Vasari Project – you can now explore content from the Library’s two largest and most frequently used holdings: the Helen Muir Florida Collection and The Vasari Project.

A Finding Aid provides an overview of the physical collection’s scope and content, regardless of whether the materials are fully, partially, or not digitized at all. A typical Finding Aid includes information about the creator, such as an individual, family, or organization, the types of materials included, and the arrangement or structure of the collection, which may be organized chronologically, thematically, or by format. These tools help researchers assess a collection’s relevance in advance, reducing the need to browse the archive in person.

Among the Library’s most notable Special Collections holdings is The Vasari Project, an archival initiative focused on documenting Miami-Dade County’s visual arts history from the 1940s to today. The collection includes artist files, photographs, gallery records, and exhibition catalogs, providing valuable insights into the region’s creative and cultural growth. So far, the Special Collections team has created 66 Finding Aids for The Vasari Project materials, arranged alphabetically.

To better understand how a Finding Aid can support research and discovery, let’s look at an example from The Vasari Project – the Bacardi Art Gallery. This case demonstrates how a well-structured Finding Aid can provide valuable context and help guide researchers directly to materials relevant to their interests.

Finding Aids can vary in the level of detail they provide, ranging from broad overviews of entire collections (known as collection-level descriptions) to specific information about individual boxes, folders, or even items. A general summary gives users a sense of the collection’s overall scope and origin, while more detailed descriptions make it much easier to locate specific materials. The more detailed the description, the more useful the Finding Aid becomes. In the Bacardi Art Gallery example, materials are organized into series, each with descriptions of the items they contain. One of the series, Catalogs, features item-level descriptions for each individual catalog, helping users easily identify what’s available, as shown below.

The Library is committed to making its archival collection easier to access and more convenient than ever to explore and use. This is an ongoing effort, and we’re constantly developing and adding new Finding Aids as we process more materials, expanding opportunities for discovery over time.

If you need help using Finding Aids or locating specific materials, feel free to contact us – we’re happy to assist! You can email us at SpecialCollections@mdpls.org, or you can visit us in person at the Main Library. Appointments are encouraged, so we can prepare in advance for your research needs, but walk-ins are always welcome.