How to Search the Collection

You can search the Visual Resources Collection database for images of objects in one of two ways. EITHER by using a “Full-text search” OR a “Field Search”

Searching the Visual Resources Collection database is very similar to using any other Web search site – you enter some terms (a single word or words of your choice, or a phrase surrounded by quotation marks), that describe what you're looking for, and then press the Search button. The search will seek to match your entry with words that appear in the image record. A match will bring up thumbnails that can be enlarged to show the image and its record.

For example, a search for ‘Raleigh’ finds images that have the word ‘Raleigh’ in their records. This could include images of Raleigh, images of works with ‘Raleigh’ in the tile, or images where the illustrator or author was called Raleigh.

Full-text search
A full text search will look for your terms in all ordinary text fields in the database at once; i.e., you don't have to guess where the term might be found. The full-text mechanism looks only for complete terms and prefixes. It will not find strings of characters inside other terms. Moreover, "noise words" (common articles, pronouns, etc.) will not be found unless they are part of a quoted phrase. For example, if you search for the term class, full-text search will match records that contain things like the word classless (class is the prefix) as well as the word class by itself, but it won't find something like outclassed. Full-text search will return an angry message if you search for the single term with (a noise word), but if you use it in the phrase "incised with birds" (quoted) you will get a match.

You can enter as many terms in each box as you like, separated by spaces. You can also choose how the terms are to be combined for your search. Selecting Any of the terms (the default) implies "or" between the terms and results in the broadest search. Selecting All of the terms will narrow the search by implying "and" between the terms.

Case is never significant. You should not try to use terms that contain embedded quotation marks (double quote mark - ").

You can also check the box marked Only records with images? to return only records for which digital images are available. This is combined with any other search criteria you specify so that you can look only for records that meet your requirements and for which digital images can be displayed.

Be aware that we might not catalog using the same term you are searching for. Searches using more than one term compound this issue. If a full-text search is not successful, try again using a more general search term.

Full-text Search Examples

Example 1:
This is the almost the simplest type of search, looking for a single term. Note that the Images? box is checked, limiting the search to only those works by Morocco for which we have images available on-line.

Example 2:
Here we're looking for any record that has both the terms “Morocco” and “Mosque”. The search is not restricted to the availability of on-line images.

This search will include this result:

Field Search

If you know something about the information you are seeking, you might speed up your search by using Field Search. You can search for terms in 3 database fields:

• Creator - the name of the creator of a work or object
  
• Title - the title of an object
  
• Site - where the work was originally housed or found

The principles of searching by field are the same as for a full-text search: simply type terms -- single words, or phrases enclosed in quotation marks -- and click on the Search button. You can refine your search by selecting Any of the terms or All of the terms for each field you need to use. An implied "and" is inserted between fields, allowing you to easily narrow your search simply by using more than one field.

Be aware that alternate titles, names of creators, and sites exist. If a field search is not successful, try again using full text, or with a more general search term.

Field Search Examples

Example 1:

This search has two terms. It will find 32 works with both terms in the titles including the following:

Campden School of Arts and Crafts performing exercise thirteen
Faculty of the School of Ceramics of the Academy of Fine Arts
Female School of Art
Bellas Artes School

Note:
(a) Selecting All of the terms is significant here. If you selected Any of the terms, (the default) you would get 4,763 responses, probably too many to be useful.
(b) The search will look for the term anywhere in the field.
(c) Case is not significant; the search will find matching records regardless of uppercase/lowercase distinctions.

To refine the above search, adding a more specific term will narrow the result to one:

Example 3:

This search uses 2 fields, title and site. The search will yield 13 hits including this record:

Example 4:

This search won't find any matches. Artist names are usually recorded in the format "lastname, firstname" This is where you need to be creative. See the next example.

Example 5:

This is more like it.We've specified both his first and last names, without quotes, and selected All of the terms. This way, however the name is recorded, it will be found.