About Search

Search

The Archives Hub provides a number of search options:

• Quick search: the homepage provides a quick search box
• Search: the main search page provides a quick search box and the ability to create more sophisticated searches
• Subject Finder: gives you the option to find related subjects
• Browse: provides a browse list

See our Search Help and Display help pages for more information.

APIs

The Hub also has interfaces that are accessible in a machine-to-machine way, enabling systems to access the descriptions and retrieve the data.

The Archives Hub currently provides the following APIs:

• SRU
• OAI-PMH
• Z39.50

See our Interfaces page for more information.

Software

The Hub uses the Cheshire information retrieval system. This provides us with a Web interface as well as Z39.50 and SRU (Search/Retrieve via URL) machine interfaces and the ability to harvest descriptions using OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting).

The Cheshire information retrieval system has been developed through a partnership between the University of Liverpool and the University of California, Berkeley, where Cheshire was conceived. The Hub uses Cheshire with an additional Cheshire for Archives layer, software that has been specifically designed for use with EAD. Indexes are provided for title, creator, date, record identifier, scope and content, full text, people, places and subjects, which allows sophisticated search and browse functionality to be provided.