Back to Search Results
Search Help
The home screen returns a full set of results by default. The result set can be narrowed by filtering results or using advanced searches in the search term line. Advanced search results can be further refined using the filters.
The latest release includes improvements to advanced searching.
Search Filters:
Filters are used to narrow search results. Available filters are type, collection, date, location, subject, contributor and organisational source.
- Sticky filters. Filters now remain selected for the entire session unless cleared. The filters can be cleared one at a time by clicking on the X next to the name of the filter. All filters can be reset by clicking on the Reset all filters button.
- Custom dates are retained until cleared or reset.
Things to note: The searches in the filters boxes
- Search on an exact match on case only.
- Search only with right hand truncation.
- Do not search for terms in the middle of a filter term.
- Filters combine as described below.
To select a filter term click on the checkbox next to the term.
- Limit your search to a single organisational source click the box next to the source. Hint: to see only material from the LANT collections in the old Territory Stories filter by Source = Digital LANT.
- Entering text in the filter search box shows the filter terms that start with the text entered. Eg enter DAR into the location box returns all locations that start with Darwin including Darwin, Darwin City, Darwin Airport etc.
- Clicking on the "more" button at the bottom of a Filter result set will display up to 20 filter terms.
- Terms in multiple filter types acts as an AND – Results include items that contain all filter types selected – eg selecting Collection = Picture NT and subject = Darwin returns items from Picture NT that have a subject of Darwin.
- Terms within a filter also act as an AND – Once a filter has been selected, only those filter terms that appear in the metadata for those records can be selected as a second filter.
- The clear Reset All Filters Button at the top of the screen clears all the filters.
The next development cycle will include enhancements to searching filters and combining filters.
Search Line – Advanced Searches:
- Advanced Searches can be created in the search line and in the PDF viewer using a combination of Advanced Search Operators and Searchable Indexes.
- Advanced Searches in the search line will search both the metadata and the text of pdf documents.
- Advanced Searches in the PDF viewer search the document being viewed.
- Older PDF's may not contain searchable text as they may be stored as images only.
Searchable Indexes:
You may now search against a specific index using the syntax – indexname=search term
For example title=camel will search for all resources with the word camel in the title.
If a search is entered without an index name, the full text search of all metadata and the contents of pdf’s is searched.
The available indexes are:
- contributor
- collection
- date
- date-organisation
- date-personal
- format
- geo-code (searches formatted geocode eg '-12.43,130.84')
- identifier
- language
- language-austlang
- location
- member
- name
- notes
- party
- rights
- subject
- title
- type
For details of the metadata fields that can be searched in each index are listed at the end of this page.
Advanced Search Operators:
Searches can use the following operators to create more specific searches and combined to create complex searches.
Notes:
- Advanced Search Operators are case sensitive. For example AND is an operator. Lowercase "and" is treated like a search term – all items containing the word "and" will be returned.
- Be careful with spaces as they are generally treated as an "OR" operator and may change the results.
| Search Feature | Symbol | What it does | Syntax Example | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Truncation | * | Find words starting with | foo* | Food, Footy, Football, etc Note: Cannot be used inside quotations representing an exact match |
| Single character wildcard | ? | Finds words with a single character at the ? | ca?s | Cats, Cars, Cans etc Note: Cannot be used inside quotations representing an exact match |
| Multiple character wildcard | * | Finds words with a multiple character where the * is | ca*s | Cats, Cars, Cans etc and other terms starting with Ca and ending in s: camels, caravans, etc Note: Cannot be used inside quotations representing an exact match |
| Space | A space between search terms is treated as an any word search Records with any of the search terms will be found | Alice Springs | Finds results that contain either of the words Alice or Springs | |
| Exact Match Phrase | " " | Finds results that contain the exact phrase inside the quotes Also used when a search term for an identifier contains special characters or spaces |
"Alice Springs" "https://hdl.handle.net/10070/38885" |
Results that contain the phrase Alice Springs Note: Wildcards cannot be used inside quotes |
| Proximity searching (sometimes known as around) |
" "~X | Finds results that contain all the words inside the quotes within X words of each other irrespective of order | "camel racing"~2 | Results that contain phrase camel racing or the phrase racing camel in any order |
| "camel racing"~5 | Results that contain both the words camel and racing, in any order, within 5 words of each other | |||
| Group | ( ) | Used to group search terms and specify the order search terms are combined | (camel AND racing) OR (camel AND export) Is the same as camel AND (racing OR export) |
Results that contain the both the words camel and racing, or contain both the words camel and export |
|
Combining OPERATORS - SYMBOLS Note: it is best to only use either word combining operators or symbol combining operators in a single query. Results may not be accurate if word and symbol operators are used in the same query. |
||||
| All words | AND | Finds results containing all words with and AND between them | camel AND racing | Results containing both camel and racing |
| Any word | OR | Finds results containing all words where there is an OR between them | camel OR horse | Results containing either of the words camel or horse |
| Not this word | NOT | Finds results that do not contain the word after the operator NOT | camel NOT racing | Results that contain the word camel but do not contain the word racing |
| All words | + | Finds results containing all words starting + | +camel +racing | Results containing both camel and racing Note: The + must be adjacent to the search word. No space between + and the search word |
| Any word | | | Finds results containing all words | |camel |horse | Results containing either of the words camel or horse |
| Not this word | - | Finds results that do not contain the word after the operator - | +camel -racing | Results that contain the word camel but do not contain the word racing |
| Index specific searches | ||||
| Date Range | TO | Finds records with dates including and between the dates in the SQUARE brackets. Use with date indexes => date, date-organisational, date-personal If the dates are YYYY then only records with a date recorded as YYYY will be found. If the dates are YYYY-MM-DD all dates are searched regardless of the completeness of the date in the metadata. Wild card can not be used within or to truncate a date. |
date=[1700-01-01 TO 1800-01-01] | Material published between 1 January 1700 to 1 January 1800 regardless of the extent of the date format in the metadata |
| date=[* TO 2020-01-01] | Material published before 1 January 2020 | |||
| date-organisational=[1940 TO 1940] | Dates in organisation records that are an exact match for 1940 | |||
| date-personal=[1920-01-01 TO 2020-12-31] | Dates in person records between 1 January 1920 to 31 January 2020 regardless of the extent of the date format in the metadata – eg date of birth, date of enlistment, date of death | |||
| geo-code | Geocode, radius | Records containing a geocode within a radius of the code. By default the radius is 25km. | -23.7002104,133.8806114 | Returns records with geocodes within 25km of the Alice Springs Post Office |
| -23.7002104,133.8806114,750 | Returns records with geocodes within 750km of the Alice Springs Post Office | |||
Sorting Results:
Search results may be sorted in the following ways by selecting from the pull down sort list at the top of the filter results panel:
| Most relevant | Sorted by relevancy as determined by the automatic sort algorithm of the search engine based on the search terms. |
| Newest added | Sorted according to the date the item record was created with most recently added first. |
| Oldest added | Sorted according to the date the item record was created with oldest first. |
| Newest modified | Sorted according to the date the item record was modified with most recently added first. |
| Oldest modified | Sorted according to the date the item record was modified with oldest first. |
| Newest published | Sorted according to the date the item was created (published, photographed, data created etc) with the most recent first. |
| Oldest published | Sorted according to the date the item was created (published, photographed, data created etc) with the oldest first. |
Metadata fields in indexes:
| contributor | dc.contributor dc.contributor.advisor dc.contributor.arranger dc.contributor.author dc.contributor.cartographer dc.contributor.commissioningbody dc.contributor.compiler dc.contributor.composer dc.contributor.corpauthor dc.contributor.corpcartographer dc.contributor.corpcompiler dc.contributor.corpcomposer dc.contributor.corpeditor dc.contributor.corpillustrator dc.contributor.corplyracist dc.contributor.corpsurveyor dc.contributor.editor dc.contributor.illustrator dc.contributor.interviewee dc.contributor.interviewer dc.contributor.issuingbody dc.contributor.lyricist dc.contributor.member dc.contributor.other dc.contributor.photographer dc.contributor.sponsor dc.contributor.surveyor dc.contributor.translator dc.identifier.party dc.creator |
| collection | dc.relation.ispartof dc.relation.ispartofseries dc.relation.isreplacedby dc.relation.replaces dc.relation.incollection dc.relation.incommunity dc.source |
| date | dc.date.issued |
| date-organisation | dc.date.arrivednt dc.date.departednt |
| date-personal | dc.date.birth dc.date.death dc.date.enlistment |
| format | dc.format dc.format.extent dc.format.medium dc.format.mimetype |
| geo-code | dc.identifier.geocode |
| identifier | citation dc.identifier dc.identifier.awards dc.identifier.geneologicalsociety dc.identifier.isbn dc.identifier.ismn dc.identifier.issn dc.identifier.ned dc.identifier.other dc.identifier.party dc.identifier.rank dc.identifier.servicenumber dc.identifier.uri dc.relation.awards (uri) dc.relation.localuri dc.relation.uri dc.source.neduri dc.source.uri |
| language | dc.language dc.language.austlang |
| language-austlang | dc.language.austlang |
| location | dc.coverage.birthspatial dc.coverage.burialspatial dc.coverage.countryofservice dc.coverage.deathspatial dc.coverage.enlistment dc.coverage.memorialspatial dc.coverage.spatial |
| member | dc.contributor.member |
| name | dc.contributor.interviewee dc.contributor.interviewer dc.contributor.member dc.description.branch dc.description.service dc.description.unit dc.description.unitnamealternate dc.description.unitnameparent dc.description.unitnamesubordinate dc.person.formattedname dc.person.knownas dc.person.name dc.person.nextofkin |
| notes | dc.description dc.description.abstract dc.description.age dc.description.biographical dc.description.ethnicity dc.description.frequency dc.description.history dc.description.mapscale NOTE use format notes= “1:100 000” dc.description.notes dc.description.occupation dc.description.provenancedonorpub dc.description.provenancepub dc.description.tableofcontents dc.relation.relatesto |
| party | dc.identifier.party |
| rights | dc.rights dc.rights.holder dc.rights.license dc.rights.pdm |
| subject | dc.contributor.interviewee dc.description.branch dc.description.service dc.description.unitnamealternate dc.description.unitnameparent dc.description.unitnamesubordinate dc.person.formattedname dc.person.name dc.subject dc.subject.apais dc.subject.apt dc.subject.ft dc.subject.lcsh dc.subject.mesh dc.subject.other dcterms.audience |
| title | dc.relation.ispartof dc.relation.ispartofseries dc.relation.isreplacedby dc.relation.replaces dc.title dc.title.alternative |
| type | ntdl type |