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Title or NamesThis option has been provided to allow researchers to search for any occurrence of a name, family or organisation that may have been used in the Names field and Title field in AHRR. The search will include names responsible for the creation of the material described as well as those with secondary responsibility, such as a co-correspondent in a collection of letters, or another member of the same family. Titles have been combined with Names in this search as the record titles also contain the names of persons or organisations. Names of organisations appear in the record title, but are not indexed in Names. As this search uses a combined index, it is possible to retrieve records that are not completely relevant. For example, one of the names used in the search may be in the Names field and another in the Title field. It does not include names that are only mentioned in other fields such as the Description or Other Subjects. However, these names can be searched using the Subjects, Description or All Above Indexed Words search options. SubjectsThe Subjects search option searches terms used in the Places, Names, Thesaurus terms and Other subjects fields. When searching for names of states, it is best to search for both the name in full and the abbreviation to ensure that all relevant records are retrieved. It may also be advisable to use the Description search option as some places noted in the description may not be included in the place fields. DescriptionThe Description search option has been included to allow researchers to search on keywords which have been used to describe the content of the records. The description field may contain names of people and places not indexed in the Subject or Names fields. Names for forms of material are not necessarily consistent in the description and synonym searching may need to be used. For instance, the terms newspaper cuttings, press cuttings and press clippings are all used. Other examples are minutes or minute books and pamphlets and leaflets. Historical NoteThis option searches terms in the Historical Note field. This field provides only background information intended to place the records in historical context. Searching this field may retrieve dates, place names and personal names that may not be directly relevant to the records themselves. All Above Indexed WordsThe All Above Indexed Words search option has been developed to provide a more general approach to searching for entries in AHRR than is provided by any of the other search options. All Above Indexed Words searches words from the Names, Title, Places, Thesaurus terms, Other subjects, Description and Historical note fields. Searching across fields using All Above Indexed Words may be an advantage in identifying names, places and topics that may occur in fields where they may not be expected. Dates and numbers may be searched using All Above Indexed Words. Register numbers may only be searched using the Register Number search. Register NumberA unique Register number is given to all records. The option to search by Register Number has been provided to allow a direct search for an entry known to be in the AHRR database where the Register Number is already known. This search is an exact match search which means it is necessary to enter all of the Register Number for the search to be successful. It is not necessary to type in preceding zeros. Fields not IndexedThe following fields will appear in some or all AHRR records but they are not indexed for searching using any of the AHRR search options:
Capitals and PunctuationSearch words may be enter in either upper or lower case or a combination of both. For example a search of the following will yield exactly the same results:
Searches on abbreviations should omit full stops. For example, a search intended for A.C.T. or R.S.L. should be entered as ACT or RSL respectively, otherwise no results will be found. Searches on initials should include full stops. For example, A.P. Miller. If full stops are omitted, ie: A P Miller or AP Miller, then different results would be retrieved. If an intended search word includes an apostrophe, eg: O'Brien or women's, then this should be included. If the apostrophe is omitted, eg: obrien, o brien, womens, women s, then the search will yield different results. If an intended search word includes a hyphen, then this may be omitted. For example, a search on either co-operative and co operative will yield the same result. However, a search on cooperative will yield a different search result. |
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Comments on any aspect of the Register are welcome and may be sent by e-mail to manuscripts@nla.gov.au |
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Last updated Tuesday 12-Nov-2002 http://www.nla.gov.au/ahrr/searchtips.html |
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