How
to Use the Database: Searching & Browsing
Keyword Searches
| Advanced Searches | Browsing
| Viewing the Results | Viewing
Contextual Material
British Fiction, 1800–1829 enables
users to locate records in a number of straightforward ways: by
keyword searches, by multiple-field
searches, and by browsing through
one of three indexes. Please note that it is possible to search
only the primary bibliographical records,
and not the contextual materials.
In addition to providing search fields (enabling
both the entry of free text and the selection from drop-down menus),
the search and browse pages also provide contextual help via highlighted
field names.
Users have the choice to include or exclude hyphens
and apostrophes when searching, as this will not affect the query:
e.g. you can opt to search for ‘Self-Control’ or ‘Self
Control’, ‘Almack's’ or ’Almacks’,
etc.
Users can also exclude data from searches by prefixing
any of the free-text fields with a ‘-’ (i.e. minus sign/dash),
which functions as logical NOT.
Keyword
Searches
Keyword searches allow for the most basic and wide-ranging
of queries, enabling users to search across all fields for a particular
term or set of terms drawn from the Author,
Full Title, Publisher
Imprint, and Notes fields.
You can choose to conduct keyword searches for
‘whole words’ or for ‘partial terms’ by
selecting the appropriate radio button—e.g. using the ‘whole
words’ option, you must type out ‘dedication’,
‘dedicated’, etc: searching for ‘dedicat’
will return no results; however, using ‘partial terms’,
‘dedicat’ will return records with ‘dedication’,
‘dedicated’, and any other similar variants with this
common root.
Representative examples include:
 searching ‘waverley
dedication’ locates ‘Dedication to the Author of Waverley’
in the Notes field for Richard Thomson’s Tales of an Antiquary
(1828).
searching ‘scott
dedication’ returns 14 records, including items with ‘John
Byerley Scott’ as Author and a ‘Dedication to George
Brewer, Esq.’; James Hogg’s ‘Dedication in verse
“to the Right Honourable Lady Anne Scott, of Buccleuch” ’;
Abel Moysey’s ‘Dedication “to Walter Scott, Esq.” ’,
and so on.
 searching ‘#scott
dedication’ returns 401 items, which contain ‘dedication’
but exclude ‘Scott’ from any of the four keyword fields.
Advanced
Searches
Advanced searches
allow users to query against a variety of bibliographical data,
as well as searching for titles that contain material drawn from
any of the six contextual fields.
At present, the Advanced Search does not
allow for partial-term searching: whole words must be entered or
a nil result will be returned: e.g. searching for ‘prej’
will not return ‘prejudice’; similarly, ‘aust’
will not return ‘austen’.
Criteria are entered into or selected from the
fields in one of three ways:
as free
text, in which words can be in any order (e.g. ‘jane
austen’, ‘austen jane’, ‘austen, jane’);
to search for records not containing the terms entered (e.g. ‘scott
NOT walter’), prefix the term to be excluded with a minus
sign/dash - (e.g. ‘scott -walter’). Fields which employ
free text entry are Author/Translator,
Title, and Notes;
although the Publication date field
allows free-text entry, only digits should be entered into the search
boxes!
via dropdown
boxes, which allow users to select a single term
from a limited list of criteria. Fields which employ dropdown boxes
are Gender, Place
of publication, and Primary publisher.
using checkboxes,
which allow users to search for records which contain any or all
of the ticked secondary materials. Fields which use checkboxes are
newspaper Advertisements, Anecdotal
records, contemporary Libraries,
Publishing papers, contemporary
Reviews, and Subscription lists.
Users can enter criteria into single fields (e.g.
searching for all works authored by Jane Austen, all titles containing
‘horror’, all female-authored works, all records containing
reviews, etc.), or refine their queries by filling multiple fields
(e.g. searching for all male-authored works published in Edinburgh
between
1810 and 1814, all works published by Longman & Co containing
publishing records.
Browsing
As an alternative to searching, users can also browse records via
three Indexes: by Author, by Title, and by Publisher. Clicking on
the appropriate letter of any of these Indexes (which are always
available on the Browse pages), will take the user to the appropriate
list of results.
Selecting a
letter from the Author Browse
will generate the Author Index: a list
of authors and the number of titles written by them. Multiple authors
of individual titles (e.g. Anna Maria and Jane Porter) are indexed
individually; consequently, the total number of works listed for
each author includes both individually and collaboratively written
works. Clicking on the author name will then take the user to a
detailed listing of their individual titles, clicking upon which
will take users to the Title Details page.
Selecting a
letter from the Title Browse
takes users automatically to an alphabetical listing of works; clicking
on the title name here will take users directly to the Title Details
page.
Selecting a
letter from the Publisher Browse
will generate a list of concerns and the number of titles for which
they appear as primary publisher. Clicking on the publisher name
will then take users to the Publisher Index,
which provides a list of authors and works. Clicking on the title
will then take users to
the Title Details page.
Viewing
the Results
Clicking on the name of a title–whether as
a result of a Search or of Browsing—will take users to the
Title Details page.
This page provides full bibliographical details for the work concerned,
including Year, Author(s), Translator(s), Gender, full Title, Publication
imprint, Format, Catalogue numbers, Notes, Further edtiions, and
the DBF record number. For full details, please see the section
on Reading the Records.
Following the bibliographical details are a series
of buttons, covering the contextual material:
newspaper Advertisements, Anecdotal records, contemporary Libraries,
Publishing papers, contemporary Reviews, and Subscription lists.
If there is any material for a title from any of these categories,
then the relevant button will be lit blue, with black text; if there
is no information available, it will be greyed out: hovering the
cursor over the button will also provide information on the availability
of additional material.
If more than one title has been returned, a button
to jump to the next record in the sequence, along with the title
of the next work, appears on the right-hand side of the page; for
subsequent titles in the sequence, options to visit the previous
record will appear on the left.
Viewing
Contextual Material
To view the contextual material, simply click
on the highlighted button. A secondary window will appear
on top of the main Title Details page and contains the additional
matter. Users can then view this material in the new window; options
to print and close appear at the bottom of each page. (A quick way
of navigating to the top or bottom of these pages is to press the
Home or End keys respectively on the keyboard.) At the top of all
contextual material pages are details of the Author/Translator,
the short Title, and the Year of publication, as well as the section
heading.
The window can be enlarged or reduced by hovering
the cursor at the edge of the box until it turns into a pair of
arrows: click the mouse button and drag the window enlarge or reduce
it. Alternatively, the window can be maximised or minimised (as
well as closed) via the title bar.
To view another category of contextual material,
simply click on the respective button: this will replace the contents
of the secondary window with the new information, as well as bringing
it to the fore of the screen if it has disappeared.
Users can move to subsequent/previous records without
having to close the secondary
window: clicking on the contextual information buttons will replace
the contents of the secondary window with the relevant material
for the new title.
| |
© 2004 Project
Director: Professor Peter Garside;
Research Associates: Dr Jacqueline
Belanger, Dr Sharon Ragaz;
Database/Website Developer:
Dr Anthony Mandal |
|
|
