How To Access Materials at
Maharishi Global Archives & Collections
Becoming Familiar With SOMA
Maharishi Global Archives & Collections was created to preserve and share the unique heritage of Maharishi's work and the history of the TM movement. This Getting Started page will help explain:
Getting Started | What is SOMA?
You can think of SOMA as Google for Maharishi's body of knowledge. In literal terms, SOMA is an archival content management software program that serves as our main database and search engine. SOMA is being deployed around the world to provide an easy-to-use catalog that meets the most rigorous levels of security and archival standards.
SOMA is the tool that allows people around the world to search MGAC's collections and interact with Maharishi's knowledge. This page is a walkthrough of how to search our digital repository and find what you're looking for. Our archive contains hundreds of thousands of items, artifacts, and original materials, which we are in the process of digitizing and adding to SOMA. As part of our agreement with our donors, some objects in MGAC's collections aren't recorded in our public database. If you have any questions, or are looking for something specific feel free to ask an archivist. Otherwise, read on to learn about how to search SOMA.
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Refining your search results
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How to contact an archivist
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What SOMA means
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How to search the archive
How to Search the Archive
You can access our archive by clicking the Search the Archive button on the top-right corner of every page on our website. It looks like this:
You will then be taken to SOMA's Archive Portal, but you can to return to our main webpage at any time :
From here can be as specific or general as you wish in your searches with SOMA.
For example, suppose you search the word, "Catalina", where Maharishi conducted two Meditation Guide courses in the early 1960s. Your "Catalina" search will bring up videos, photographs, application letters, pamphlets, and other records from both courses.
For some users, this kind of abundance is what they're looking for. Others might prefer narrower search results. The graphics below illustrate how you can filter your search results by media type, year, author, date, keywords, and a number of other possibilities.
see https://guides.library.harvard.edu/hollishelp/refinemyresults
