Searching the SCIPIO : Art and Rare Books Sales Catalogs Database

SCIPIO : Art and Rare Book Sales Catalogs

The SCIPIO : Art and Rare Book Sales Catalogs is the only online union catalogue of auction sales catalogues in existence.

It contains approximately 650,000 bibliographic records of catalogues from all major North American and European auction houses, as well as important private sales. Catalogues date from the late sixteenth century to scheduled auctions not yet been held, and cover the sale of items such as manuscripts, sculpture, world art from all time periods, drawings, prints, photographs, musical instruments, furniture, objects d'art, decorative and applied arts. Information available includes information on dates and places of sale, catalogue title, the auction house, sellers and institutional holdings. Extensive notes on the contents of sales catalogues are included in some records.

You are able to search the SCIPIO database via Libraries AustraliaWeb. SCIPIO is made available through the RLG Gateway. As with other databases accessible from Libraries AustraliaWeb, we have tried to configure SCIPIO to be consistent with search strategies used in searching other databases. However, a number of differences are inevitable, given the variation in the way each database has been set up. Further information about DBD can be found on the RLG Website at http://www.rlg.org/cit-sci.html


CONTENTS

  1. Keyword Searching
  2. Operators
  3. Truncation
  4. Non Keyword Searching - Title, Subject Heading and Corporate/Conference Name
  5. Non Keyword Searching - Personal Name
  6. Date of Sale
  7. Record clusters

1. Keyword Searching

As with the other RLG databases, SCIPIO offers true keyword searching. Words input as search terms can occur anywhere in the field, and do not have to be adjacent to one another. SCIPIO inserts an AND between each word before sending the query to the server.

Example:
Name keyword search:
"Hong Kong International Auctions Inc"
will retrieve records with corporate name:
"Hong Kong Auctions International Inc"

 

2. Operators

Like the other RLG databases, SCIPIO does not support the operators NEAR and WITH. In any case, keyword searching in SCIPIO allows for the searching on two or more terms occurring anywhere in a field, noting that control of word order is not permitted.

Example:
Title keyword search : "chinese sale"
will retrieve records with the titles :
"The imperial sale, fine Chinese ceramics and works of art" and
"Old Chinese porcelains; final public sale"

 

3. Truncation

As with the other RLG databases, the Hash (#) is used to right truncate search terms in SCIPIO. You may truncate more than one word in a search term ( as shown in the example below ), but only if you are performing a keyword search.

Example:
Title keyword search : gre# sal#
will retrieve records with the title :
"The Greek Sale"

 

4. Non Keyword Searching - Title, Subject Heading and Corporate/Conference Name

Searches on Title, Subject Heading and Corporate/Conference Name match on the complete 'a' subfield of their respective search fields. Zero hits will be returned unless the complete Title, Subject Heading or Corporate/Conference Name appearing in the 'a' subfield is entered as the search term.

A way around this is to place the # truncation symbol immediately after the last word in your search term. This way, your search will match on titles, subjects or corporate/conference names that have your search term at the beginning of the field.

Example:
Title search: greek sale#
will retrieve a record with the titles:
"Greek sale V" and "Greek sale : 19th century paintings"
Example:

Subject search: heritage#
will retrieve a record with the subjects:
"heritage foundation" and "heritage square foundation"

Example:
Corporate/Conference Name search: london#
will retrieve a record with the corporate/conference names:
"London society" and "London bookshop and Gallery, Chicago"

 

5. Non Keyword Searching - Personal Name

A Personal Name search on surname will truncate after the surname. Such a search will match on personal names that have the surname appearing at the beginning of the field.

When searching on Personal Name where a forename or initial follows the surname, truncation will not occur at the end of the search term. Such a search will match exactly on the search term entered. Unfortunately, the # truncation cannot be used to get around this.

It is also possible to search on Personal Name by placing the surname after the forename and any initials. If this option is used, do not include a comma.

Example:
Personal Name search: marion
will retrieve a record with the personal name:
"Marion, Louis" and "Marion, Louis J"

Example:
Personal Name search: "Marion, L"
will return records with Personal Name "Marion, L" and not "Marion, Louis" or
"Marion, Louis J" or "Marion, L J"

Example:
Personal Name search: "Louis J Marion"
will return records with Personal Name "Marion, Louis J"

 

6. Date of sale

Date of sale searches on the 033 MARC tag Date/Time of an Event, and may be used to further refine a search. Allowable syntax for Date of Sale is shown in the examples below.

Example:
The following searches are valid :
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale = "2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale = "06 2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "06 2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "06 16 2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "16 06 2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "June 2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "2002 June"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "16 June 2002"
Corporate/Conf Name Keyword = "Sotheby" and Date of Sale > "June 16 2002"

 

7. Record clusters

In SCIPIO each institution's holdings are represented by a separate record rather than added to a single record. If more than one institution holds a catalogue, multiple records are clustered together. For records to cluster, they must match exactly on two or more of the following four fields : Auction house ( 110 $a $b ), Title ( 245 $a $b $n $p ), Date of sale ( 033 $a ) and Sale code ( 024 $a ).
When records in a cluster meet the criteria of a search, only the primary record of the cluster is returned. This record may or may not meet the search criteria.

Example:
Any keyword search : Gaugin
will not only retrieve records containing the term "Gaugin", but also a record titled "Frank Crowninshield collection of modern French illustrated books" ( see screen dump below ) which does not contain the search term. This is the the primary record of a cluster which does include a record containing the search term "Gaugin".

The record "Frank Crowninshield collection of modern French illustrated books" is displayed below. It does not contain the search term "Gaugin".

View result screen