Search Help
How to Search
How to 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
Quick Search
Go to the home page: www.archiveshub.ac.uk
Enter your search terms in the box provided and click on Go.
e.g. Keyword (default search): writers
The Home page search gives you a number of simple search options.
You can choose different search options by clicking on the drop down menu and selecting one of the following:
Keywords - searches all main fields, such as title, scope and content and index terms (subjects, names, etc.)
Titles - searches titles of collections and titles of lower-level descriptions (series, items)
Creators - searches names of creators of archives, both individuals and organisations (e.g. agatha christie, john ruskin, trades union congress)
Names - searches personal names, family names and corporate names
Subjects - searches subjects that have been assigned to descriptions, so usually indicates a collection is strong in this subject area
Use our main search page for the full range of search options.
Search
From our main search page you can choose any of the following search options:
Keywords - all main fields, such as title, scope and content and index terms (subjects, names, etc.)
Titles - titles of collections and titles of lower-level descriptions (series, items)
Dates - dates that the archives cover, i.e. dates they were created. Some archives range over centuries, others may span decades or just be individual dates
Dates: Before - the dates of the archive will include the period before the query, but may span a period after the date given. E.g. Before 1700 will include dates such as 1600-1710, 1690-1800, 1660-1680.
Dates: After - the dates of the archive will include the period after the query, but may span a period before the date given. E.g. After 1700 will include dates such as 1710-1750, 1600-1710, 1690-1800, 1920-1950, 16th - 20th century.
Dates: Between - the dates of the archives will be between the dates of the query. E.g. 1790-1800 will include 1799, 1790-1791, but will not include 1799-1801.
Dates: Spans - the dates of the query will be entirely covered by the dates of the archives. E.g. 1900 will include 1890-1910, 1800-2000, 1801-1901. E.g. 1914-1918 will include 20th century, 1850-1919 but will not include 1850-1915.
Creators - names of creators of archives, both individuals and organisations (e.g. agatha christie, john ruskin, trades union congress)
Ref. Numbers - reference numbers assigned to collections (requires knowledge of references used by repositories)
Subjects - subjects that have been assigned to descriptions. Usually indicates a collection is strong in this subject area.
Names - personal names, family names and corporate names
People - personal names
Organisations - corporate names
Places - place names
Media types - genre, such as photographs, glass negatives, manuscripts (only a small proportion of descriptions use this field)
Build Your Search
Repository Searching
The Hub searches across archives held at hundreds of repositories. You can choose to search within All repositories that contribute to the Hub or click on the drop down menu and select just a specific repository
All / Any / Phrase options
You may choose to refine your search by using the drop-down box to select 'All' search terms, 'Any' search terms or a 'Phrase' search. These boxes change slightly depending on your main search option. Some provide an 'Exact' search, and the date search provides other appropriate options.
Add another search term
Additional search terms can be added by clicking on the ...Add another search term link. This will add more search options which you can link with AND, OR, and NOT. You can add another search term as many times as needed to create more complex searches.
Only display collections
'Collections' refers to higher-level descriptions that give a summary of a collection of archives. Collection level descriptions and lower-level descriptions, which give more detail, will be displayed at the same time by default. If you only want to see an overview of collections, it is a good idea to select Only display collection descriptions by using the checkbox provided. If you want to see more detail then leave the checkbox unchecked.
Click on the Go button or press enter to run your search.
Click on Reset to empty the search boxes.
Search Tips
Case sensitivity
The Archives Hub is not case sensitive. For example, you can search for Stanley Kubrick or stanley kubrick.
Phrase Searching
There are two ways to phrase search in the Archives Hub.
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Use quotation marks around a phrase to search for terms when they appear together.
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e.g. "graphic designers"
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NB If you use quotations marks in the main search; make sure you only use this when you have selected 'All' or 'Any' from the drop-down list. If you use quotation marks in an 'Exactly' search, then you will search for your search terms with the quotation marks, which might mean you get 0 results.
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Choose 'Phrase search' from the drop down list.
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e.g. Phrase search: industrial revolution
Wildcards
Wildcard symbols are used to represent letters within words to search for word variations when you do not want to narrow down your search too far.
? represents a single letter
e.g. wom?n
searches for "woman" and "women"
* can be used at the end of the root of a word to search for different endings
e.g. photograph*
searches for photograph, photographs, photographer, photography
Browse
Browse allows you to browse alphabetically through the following options:
Title - name of the collection
Creator - creator of the archive, which may be an individual or organisation
Subject - subjects assigned to descriptions
Names - names assigned to descriptions, including individuals, families and organisations
People - individuals
Family - family names
Organisations - corporate names
Places - place names
Reference Numbers - reference numbers given to collections, including country code and repsitory code
For example, if you search for the subject Basque, you will see all of the subject terms that are alphabetically adjacent to this term, such as Basket Makers, Basque literature, Basque Poetry, Basques.
Subjects and Subject Finder
If you are searching the Archives Hub for a particular subject then you can choose to do a subject search or to use our subject finder.
A subject search searches for subject terms that have been assigned to descriptions and usually indicates a collection is strong in this subject area.
You can search for subjects in either Quick Search or Search. You can choose a subject search by clicking on the drop down menu and selecting Subjects.
Then enter your search terms in the box provided and click on Go.
e.g. Subjects: writers
Use our subject finder search as way of finding archive material with related subject terms.
e.g. writers
Your results include terms such as novels, letter writing, hymn writing, playwrights and literature.
The subject finder looks for other subject terms within the descriptions, and weights these in the list of results according to how commonly they are found with your search term.
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The Archives Hub is a Mimas service, funded by JISC and based at The University of Manchester. Systems development work is undertaken at the University of Liverpool. Notices and disclaimers.