BBIH Help - Table of contents 2.2 Advanced search

The Advanced search screen offers the following features not available on Simple search:

   - additional search fields (see list below);
   - Browse lists associated with most fields (learn more,
2.6);
   - the option of selecting the Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) used between fields (see below).

Available fields are:

1. Search anywhere: searches for the words that you enter anywhere in the data (learn more, 2.8.1). This field offers an Auto-complete list, enabling you to see all the words, names, periodical titles and indexing terms used in the database (learn more, 2.5).

2. Bibliographical search:

   - Author (Learn more, 2.8.2)

   - Title contains (Learn more, 2.8.3)

   - Journal or Series (Learn more, 2.8.4)

   - Year of publication (Learn more, 2.8.5)

All the bibliographical fields except for Publication year offer Auto-complete lists (learn more, 2.5) and Browse lists (learn more, 2.6), enabling you to see all the names or titles used in these fields.

3. Subject search

   - All index terms: use this field to look for words or phrases occurring in subject indexing, including place names and personal names. (Learn more, 2.8.6). This field offers an Auto-complete list (learn more, 2.5) and a Browse list (learn more, 2.6), enabling you to see all the terms used in the subject indexing fields. You can also use the following fields to obtain a hierarchical view of the subject indexing and place name terms, or to search specifically for people as subjects.

   - Subject tree: enables you to select subject indexing terms (other than place names and personal names) by browsing a hierarchically organized tree. You can also search the tree for a specific word to see which terms match. (Learn more, 2.8.7.)

   - Place name tree: enables you to select geographical indexing terms by browsing a hierarchically organized tree. You can also search the tree for a specific place name to see which terms match. (Learn more, 2.8.8).

   - Person as subject: use this field if you want to find works about a particular historical person. (Learn more, 2.8.9). This field offers an Auto-complete list (learn more, 2.5) and a Browse list (learn more, 2.6), enabling you to see all the names used in this field.

   - Period covered: use this field to specify a range of years. There is also an option to restrict your search to Close matches. (Learn more, 2.8.10).

You can use wildcards in all fields except Year of publication, Subject tree, Place name tree and Period covered. You can also use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) in the same fields and the Subject tree and Place name tree also allow you to switch between AND and OR if you use multiple terms in these fields. (Learn more, 2.4).

In addition to using Boolean operators within fields, you can also select the operators linking fields by using the drop-down menus at the left of the screen:

Boolean operators

AND (the default setting) means that the results of your search must match any criteria that you have placed in the corresponding search field. If you fill more than one field and leave the operator preceding each field as AND, your search will return only records that meet all of your criteria. For example, inserting "Porter, Roy Sydney, 1946-2002" in the Author field and enlightenment in the Title contains field, and leaving the operator in front of each field as AND, would produce a result list containing all works by Roy Porter that have 'enlightenment' in the title.
OR means that the document to be retrieved may match either the criteria preceding OR or the criteria following it. For example, inserting "Porter, Roy Sydney, 1946-2002" in the Author field and enlightenment in the Title contains field, and then switching the operator in front of Title contains to OR, would produce a result list containing all works by Roy Porter and all works with 'enlightenment' in the title.
NOT means that the results of your search must exclude any record that matches the criteria in the corresponding field. For example, inserting "Porter, Roy Sydney, 1946-2002" in the Author field and enlightenment in the Title contains field, and then switching the operator in front of Title contains to NOT, would produce a result list containing all works by Roy Porter which do not have 'enlightenment' in the title.

The number of hits for each search field will be displayed automatically (learn more, 2.7). The total number of hits appears at the bottom of the screen.

Total number of hits

Click the Search button at the bottom right of the screen to see the results of your search on the Result overview (learn more, 3).

If you wish to remove the search criteria that you have inserted at any point, use the Clear fields button at the bottom left of the screen.