How the Search Works
General Information
We’ve aimed to make our search component as intuitive and easy to use as possible. However, if you find that you’re having problems or the results being returned are not making sense then please refer to the information below.
- Searches can either be carried out using the weighted text search on the left, the filters to the right or a combination of both.
- A text search by itself will return all results for that term across all categories.
- Choosing a category without a text search will return all items within the chosen category.
- Entering a text search and also choosing a category will return all instances of the text search within that category.
Ajax Searching
In order to present users with a fast and responsive searching experience our search component utilises a technology called ‘Ajax’. The practical upshot of this is that it searches for results ‘on the fly’ and pressing ‘return’ is not necessary. We’ve configured the component to leave enough time for someone who can type at an average speed to type in their required word or phrase before the search is triggered. However, if the search triggers before you’ve finished typing please simply return to the search field and finish typing in your phrase and the required results set will be returned.
Multiword searches: Scope of results
Our search component utilises boolean ‘AND’ filtering followed by ‘OR’ filtering. In non-technical terms this means that in cases where the user searches for a phrase (as opposed to a single word) the search component will initially look for index cards where both words appear followed by those where pone of the words appears. This will have an affect on the order in which the results are displayed.
Order of Results
The search component takes numerous factors into account and works to display results in the most intuitive and logical order possible. Clearly, there is a degree of subjectivity involved here and what appears intuitive and logical to one user may not to another. Our search component initially searches through the titles of the index cards for the search term and displays the results alphabetically. Having done this, it looks for the search term within the OCR’d text and, again, displays these records alphabetically. In cases where a large number of results are returned results where the term has been found in the title are displayed first, followed by results where the term has been found in the OCR’d text.
Search Limitations
Scanning of the Cards/Optical Character Recognition and the Accuracy of Searching – Most of the cards were type-written. However many were handwritten, sometimes neatly, sometimes less so. The images of the cards have been scanned and the text on them recognised as accurately as possible by the software used in this project. The character recognition is not perfect, but it is good. so please be aware and allow for some errors. If you find you are having difficulty finding what you anticipate is on the cards you may have to compensate by searching under broader terms, such as using the headings on the cards or using the Category filter.
The search component will only search for words or phrases containing at least three characters. Any searches with only one or two characters will not return any results.
Problems / Issues
We hope you enjoy searching through our catalogue. If you have any problems please contact us via our contact page and we’ll be pleased to help.