UAB ContentDM Image Search Tutorial in 10 Steps

With research papers and presentations just around the corner, we thought it would be helpful to provide a tutorial on how to use UAB's online slide library called ContentDM. It is accessible through the Sterne Library website with your BlazerID. Once you understand the steps, you can create your own personal folders to save images. This tutorial will show you how to search for and download images from the database. Follow the red boxes in pictures below to find the items on which to click. You may click on any of the images for a larger view of each step.

-Step 1: Go to the Sterne Library homepage and click the link to the UAB Digital Collections.
-Step 2: From the UAB Digital Collections site, click the link to the Art History Collection. This will take you to the front page of ContentDM.
-Step 3: Here is where access to the database gets strange, but if you follow these steps it will be easy. The picture below is what the page looks like when you arrive. As you can see, the images do not show up yet and instead have a "restricted file" label. Click on any of the images listed. For this example, the first image was chosen but any will work.

-Step 4: Once you are on the information page for the image you clicked on, click on the link to the right of "Rights." This will take you to the sign-in page for the database so that you may view and download the images.

-Step 5: At the sign-in page, enter your BlazerID and password, then click "To the resource."

-Step 6: Now you are signed into the database. As you can see, the same default images are on the homepage. The difference is that you can see the images now that you are logged in. Click the "advanced search" link at the top of the page.

-Step 7: Once on the advanced search page, make sure that only the "art history" box near the bottom is checked off. This way your search will only consist of images. Type the criteria you wish to find in the search box and click the "search" button. For this example, we used the search keyword "warhol."

-Step 8: All of the images that match your search criteria will show up on the results page. Scroll through to find the one you need. If there too little or too few results, alter your search criteria until you find the image that you seek. The slide library is constantly adding new images so keep in mind that while the database has thousands of images, it might not have the one that you need. Once you find the correct image, click the title to go to the image's information page. For this example, we chose the first one listed.

-Step 9: Once on the item's information page, click the link to the right of "Full resolution." This will bring up the image in its full high-resolution quality. All of the files are JPEGs.

-Step 10: You are just about done! When the image has finished loading, right-click on the image and select "save image as..." or similar, depending on which internet browser you are using (Mozilla Firefox was used for these examples). Pick a place to save your image and you are done!