The simple search box is located in the top right hand corner of every page. It can be used to perform a general search on the descriptions of the images, objects and articles catalogued in the website. It will quickly find keywords anywhere within the records. Just enter the word or words you are looking for in the search box and click on Go.
To narrow down a search you can either use a Boolean search, or look for words in specific fields of the catalogue record by using the Advanced Search .
Searching is not case sensitive so search words can be lower and upper case or a mixture of the two.
Boolean searches
The Boolean operators, AND, NOT, OR can be used to define a more specific search in both Simple and Advanced search fields.
Note that Boolean operators must be typed in UPPER CASE
Where no operator is specified between words, the operator AND is assumed. Brackets allow you to define the order in which operators are applied.
For example
Thames OR Kennet will find any record mentioning either river name.
river AND Thames AND Kennet will find records that mention the word river as well as both Thames and Kennet.
(river AND NOT Thames) OR Kennet will find mentions of any river except the Thames as well as mentions of the Kennet Canal.
river AND NOT (Thames OR Kennet) will find all mentions of river excluding both Thames and Kennet.
When applying the operators NOT and OR, further qualification by AND is optional, so:
river NOT Thames is the same as river AND NOT Thames.
Quotation marks can be used to identify phrases of more than one word.
For example
river Kennet will find records that contain both words, not necessarily in conjunction.
“river Kennet” will find that specific phrase.
Wildcards
‘?’ is a single character wildcard. Wa?er finds water, wager or wafer.
‘*’ is a general wildcard. Fool* finds fool, foolery, foolish, etc.
‘[ ]’ allows you to specify options. Wa[tf]er finds water or wafer but not wager.
Advanced Search
The advanced search can be used to narrow down the search by looking for a term in a specific field or group of fields in the catalogue record. In this way it is possible to distinguish Kingsley the person from Kingsley the place. Boolean searches can be applied within any of these fields.
The Sense of Place South East (SoPSE) website covers a wide range of types of material and draws on a number of different pre-existing catalogues. We have tried to bring these together into a single database but there are inevitable variations of usage and terminology between, for example, a collection of artefacts and issues of a newspaper. Some collections will not make use of fields that are important to others. These notes explain how the various searches relate to the fields in a SoPSE record.
Title
Use this field to search for an object or image title, an article title from a newspaper or magazine or the title of a newspaper, book or journal. (E.g. Snare’s Reading directory.)
Name
The name search brings together names of people connected with the item. This will either be as creator or subject. The full object display record will show the person’s name in either the Creator or Name Subject field. (E.g. Robert Scott.)
Subject
SoPSE partners have used a range of keywords to describe the subjects of items in their collections. If your search is unsuccessful try using a synonym (another word with a similar meaning). Some keywords mentioned in the ‘Full Description’ (used to describe images in detail) may not be entered in the Subject field so it can be more effective to use the Simple search box to find references to particular subjects.(e.g. costume, boat, health)
Place
Use this field when searching for a specific place relating to the object. This field can relate to more than one place and can be used for the subject matter of the object (e.g. Himalayas) or the place where the object was produced (e.g. London).
Publisher
Use this field to search for the publisher of a printed work. In some cases it is also used for the organisation that commissioned a work (e.g. Huntley & Palmers) as distinct from the makers (e.g. Huntley, Boorne & Stevens).
Content Type
Use this field to search for the original object type e.g. calendar. This field works effectively when used in conjunction with other search fields or on uncommon objects. Warning: A large proportion of items currently on the database are digitised photographs so a search for photograph will yield many hundreds of results.
Collection
Use this field to select a specific named collection to search on.
Issue No
Use this field in conjunction with Title when you are searching for a specific issue number of a newspaper or journal.
For example: Title: Slough Observer Issue: 29546
This field is also used to enter volume numbers of books, journals and magazines.
Page No
Use this field in conjunction with Title when you are searching for a specific page number of a newspaper, journal or book.
For example: Title: Itchen Engravings Page No: 7
Location
This field is for searching the location where the original object or item is currently held. This is not the place depicted in the image or where the original object was made (see Place). Use this field when you are searching for all items held at a specific museum, library, archive or other organisation.
Date: From – To
Use these fields to search for specific dates or date ranges. It is not necessary to fill in every box - you can search on a year, on a month in a year or for an exact date.
If the day and month fields of the ‘From’ box are left empty the date defaults to 1 January. Similarly the default date for the ‘To’ box is 31 December.
To Search on a Specific Date: Ensure you input the date in both the ‘From’ and ‘To’ boxes. This limits both ends of the search.
To Search on a Date Range: If you only fill in the ‘From’ box, the search will collect every result from the date you specified in the ‘From’ box up to the present day. Similarly, if you only fill in the ‘To’ box, the search will collect every result up to the date you specified in the ‘To’ box.
For example
For images of Slough in the 19th century enter Date From: 1800 and Date To: 1899
For objects made before 1800 leave Date From blank and Date To: 1800
Combined searches
When search terms are entered in more than one field the Boolean operator AND is assumed. This means that the search will only find records satisfying all your criteria.
For example: Name: Thomas Palmer AND Location: NOT University
will include all items related to Thomas Palmer except those held in the University.
Searching for newspaper articles (Slough History Online only)
Slough History Online contains digital images of pages from the Slough Observer dating from 1883 to 1929 and you can use Slough History Online to call up pages from that era.
To read the newspapers, go to the advanced search box and select "newspaper" from the content type drop-down box. You can narrow down your search by using the date range box.
Some years have been indexed for names, places and subjects in the Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead areas. A full list of these dates can be found on the front page of Slough History Online. Just type in a name, place or subject into the appropriate box in the advanced search screen.
Press the go button and the correct pages should come up. You can then select the first page that you are interested in.
If you searched by keyword, you can see where the name appears in the keywords section at the bottom of the page. The keywords are listed in order so it gives you an indication of where the name appears on the page. Top tip: Use edit and find to search for the keyword you are looking for.
See below to find out how to read the newspapers.
Searching for entries in the births, marriages, deaths and memorials columns (Slough History Online only).
Slough History Online contains an index of the names that appear in Slough Observer's births, marriages, deaths and memorials columns between 1883 to 1929.
To read a column, go to the advanced search box and select "births marriages and deaths column" from the content type drop-down box. You can search for dates by using the date range box.
Press the go button and the correct pages should come up. You can then select the first page that you are interested in. If there is a picture of the column in the top left-hand column, you can select either the "high resolution" or "zoomable image" option on the left-hand side of the screen.
If there is "no image available", copy the short code in the full description box and paste it into the search box in the top right hand corner of the page and press go. Select the record with an image.
Reading a page from a newspaper (Slough History Online only).
To read a page that you are interested in, select either the "high resolution" or "zoomable image" option on the left hand side of the screen. "High resolution" is best if you are in the library or have a broadband connection, while the "zoomable image" should be better for dial-up connection at home. Whichever you choose, it is a large file so it may take a bit of time to download.
If you are using the high resolution option, the newspaper will initially look very large and, once completely loaded, the page will look very small. To make the page readable, you will have to put the mouse on the bottom right-hand section of the image and a symbol should appear. Press the symbol and the page should become large again.
If you are using the "zoomable image" you can use the mouse drag a square around the page. The births marriage and deaths column tends to be in the bottom-right hand corner of the page.
The births marriage and deaths column tends to be in the bottom-right hand corner of the page.
