Historic Books – Advanced Queries
The Advanced Search form will be a separate web page reached via the Advanced Search button
within the main Search page. It will contain its own Search initiation button and return the user to
the main results page as for normal searches.
It will follow a layout similar to Google advanced book search and comprise the following
fields/options:
Field/Option
Collection
Description
Three check boxes allowing one or
more collections to be included in the
search (EEBO, ECCO, BL).
Scope/Rules
By default they will all be
selected/checked.
Plain Text
A set of plain text query criteria fields as
listed below.
Since Title, Author & Imprint are
given separately as criteria (own
fields) these fields will apply to
page content only.
Matches will be made against page
content. In books browsing mode one
or more pages within the book must
satisfy the match – the match is not
across pages.
A single query expression will
from any query criteria entered
in the following manner – this
will be transparent to the user:
(Expression) AND (All AND
Words) AND “Exact Phrase” AND
(at least one word) NOT (without
AND words)
All Words Only matches pages that contain all the
terms entered.
Exact Phrase Only matches pages that contain the
exact phrase.
At Least One Word Only matches pages that contain at
least one of the terms.
Without Words Only matches pages that do not contain
any of the terms.
Meta Data
A set of Meta data fields for which
search terms (or dates) can be entered.
If no plain text search criteria is given
then search will be at the book level
only.
Title Matches against the book Title only.
Alphanumeric terms only.
Any syntax including Boolean
operators will be forbidden.
As above
No stemming is applied.
Stop words will not be matched.
As above
As above
All Meta data field criteria is
logically ANDed together and
ANDed with any plain text
element.
Standard IDOL conceptual query
behaviour.
Two separate value fields available.
Multiple values will be ORed.
Author Matches against the book Author only.
Two separate value fields available.
Multiple values will be ORed.
Imprint Matches against the book Publisher
only.
Two separate value fields available.
Multiple values will be ORed.
Bib / ESTC Number Matches against the book Bibliographic
Number only.
As above
As above
An exact match on value.
Two separate value fields available.
Multiple values will be ORed.
Country of Origin Pending analysis –
Likely to be exact match with multiple
value fields.
Year of Publication There will be an option to search on any
date or a range of dates.
Wildcards
Likely to be a range match on year.
Any term entered into an plain text
search box can include wildcard
operators * and ?
Control
Results Per Page The number of results to be returned
per page of results.
Sort Relevance or Published Date
Possibly a list of unique values
from the data.
Year entered as valid YYYY.
Terms with wildcards must be
qualified by at least three
leading non-wildcard characters.
Wildcards cannot be used for
Dates and ESTC numbers.