We use cookies to improve your experience, some are essential for the operation of this site.
Home > Help

Quick Search

Enter a word or phrase in the Search box and click Search. Quick Search looks for that word or phrase in all the data associated with each record throughout the database.

Fuzzy searching

By default Quick Search conducts a fuzzy search. For example a search for hoose will find house (if house exists in the data). If a match isn't found suggestions will be offered of similar terms that do exist on the site.

Fuzzy searching and suggestions are inhibited by placing quotes around the term, for example "house" will return items with exactly that word, but not houses. Searching for "hoose" or "hiuse" will not return any items and no suggestions will be offered.

Wildcard

The wildcard (*) can be used in place of unknown characters or to widen the search. For example North* will retrieve North, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, North Island etc...

Boolean Operators

When you are searching for more than one word or wish to exclude specific words from the search you can use Boolean operators.

Use AND, OR and NOT to specify whether a result set must contain all terms, any terms, or not the specified term. For example London AND street finds only items where both London and street are present, London NOT street finds only items where London is present but street is not, London OR bridge finds items where either London or bridge are present.

Phrase Searching

A phrase can be found by placing quotes around it. For example, a quick search for green tree will find any item that has the word green or tree in it somewhere. Searching for "green tree" only returns items with that exact phrase.


Subject Search

Each record can have one or more subject keywords associated with it. You can search for keywords using the Subjects search, either with the subjects tree or the A - Z search.


Advanced Search

If you already know some details of the image you require then you can get a more direct result by using the Advanced Search and entering term(s) in one or more of the fields. You can choose to combine terms with AND - in which case only items containing all of the search terms will be returned. Or you can combine terms as OR - in which case items contanining any of the terms will be returned.


Browse

Selecting Browse will return every item in the database.


Collections

The Collections page allows you to view items that have been collated as a collection of images. A collection is represented by a thumbnail image and a title. To view a collection, click on the thumbnail to link to an item page detailing that collection.


Selections Page

Beside each thumbnail, and under each reference image, is a checkbox. Clicking in this box changes the item's status to ‘Selected’. The item is automatically placed in the Selections page and can be viewed at any time using the Selections link on the left hand navigation bar. To remove an item from selections click the checkbox, or use Clear Selection to remove all items. As a registered and logged in use more options are available on the selections page, such as saving selections for retrieval at a later date.


Refine Search

Any search results can be refined using the Refine Search on the left hand menu bar. Refine search presents the Advanced Search page, and any terms entered are searched for in only the results of the last search.


Previous Searches

The Previous Searches page records a history of all the searches you perform in chronological order. To view the results of a previous search click on the link. This function is session based, closing your browser will clear the Previous Search history.


Search Results

Gallery

Results of searches are returned as a gallery of thumbnail images. The number of thumbnails displayed per page on can be changed by entering a number in the 'Display xx items' box on the top navigation bar. A detailed or thumb view can be selected from the pick list to its right. To view an item, click on a thumbnail.

Item Details Page

The ‘Item Record’ page displays the referenced size image and the corresponding data. It is possible to select the image (see above) from this page, view a higher resolution image, email the page as a link and download the image.

The ‘Item Record’ page includes a ‘crumb trail’, this displays the type of search used to generate the current set of results and allows you to link back to the gallery containing the current item.

Navigation between Item Record pages is done by either using the Previous and Next arrow buttons or by entering the required page number in the page number field and pressing return.

Any related items or Subjects that the item appears under are also displayed.

An example of a relationship could be that a page is related to the book it is taken from and a book is related to a page it contains.

If the item belongs to any collections or subjects theses are also displayed along with the nature of the relationship. To view any related items or collections click on the View link on the appropriate pane. To view any subjects that the item appears in click the named link on the subjects pane.