Help on Search

Simple search criteria

Search is not case-sensitive.

Search terms must comprise at least 3 characters.

When entering multiple keywords, use blanks as separators. All keywords are automatically linked with a logical "OR".

The results are ordered by the frequency of the occurrences of the search term.

The subsequently described search options can be combined. Fuzzy Search and Dublic Core Search can only be used with the Keyword Search, while truncation, Boolean Operators, phrase search and distance search can also be used with the Extended Search.

Truncation

Search terms can be truncated using the characters "*" and "?". The asterisk serves as a placeholder for any number of characters, while the question mark replaces one specific character. Neither truncation operator may be used at the beginning of a word, but combining both operators is possible.

Examples:

The search term lett* will yield all entries beginning with lett and continuing with any number of different endings (e.g. lettera, letteratura, letteraria, …) , whereas the search term ba?ia reveals all four-character strings which start with ba and end with ia (e.g. badia, balia, bacia,…)

Boolean Operators

The search interface can handle the logical operators "AND", "OR" and "NOT" to refine the query.

Examples:

The search term lettera OR dama will result in a list of objects which contain either lettera or dama. lettera AND dama yields all documents containing both search terms, lettera NOT dama will reveal all instances of the term lettera without the term dama occurring in the same text.

Phrase search

A phrase search is performed when multiple keywords are placed in quotation marks. The entered search terms appears in the exact specified phrase in the results.

Example:

A search for "dans la vie" only produces results if the search terms occur in this exact order. If the quotation marks are omitted, the search will also retrieve documents that contain only one of the keywords (e.g, dans un café).

Fuzzy Search

For this somewhat indistinct search method, one uses the tilde sign "~" at the end of a search term. The degree of similarity (between 0 and 1) can be parameterized. If no value is provided, the default setting used is 0.5.

Example:

The search term primera~0.7 will list all documents containing words like primera, primeira, primavera, and so on.

Distance search

The distance search allows you to search for two terms, which occur within a certain distance from each other. To use this search, enter a phrase search (see above) and add the tilde symbol "~" followed by the maximum number of words within which the search terms must occur.

Example:

The query "lettera dama"~5 would retrieve an entry like "subjugation of Lydia by Cyrus”.

Dublin Core Search

You can specify to which Dublin Core metadata field you want to limit your search.

Examples:

The search term dc.date:1763 will reveal all objects whose Dublin Core field dc.date contains the exact value 1763.