Quick Search Tips

The following tips and suggestions can help you get the results you are looking for when browsing the Digital Collection.

Basic Browsing

Some images are accompanied by Hamnet records which describe the entire item, not the specific portion photographed. In many cases only abbreviated data records are provided.

Thumbnail browsing can be a great way to explore our content without having to enter search terms. In both LUNA and the Insight Java Client you have the option of browsing through up to 250 thumbnails at a time.

And in LUNA you can narrow any browse or search results by selecting a What, Where, Who or When Category from the "Narrow Search" lists displayed on each screen of thumbnails. 

• Follow this link for more about browsing the Group Workspace in your installed Luna Insight Java Client.
• Follow this link for more about browsing in LUNA on the web.
• Follow this link for more about narrowing browse or search results in LUNA.

A search by keyword is often the best place to start.

Searching by Keyword in LUNA using your web browser

A keyword search finds terms anywhere within the information that accompanies an image.

Here are some tips on searching by keyword in LUNA:

Keyword Search in LUNA works much like in a search engine, so you can use the AND, OR, NOT, and " " to help refine your search.

You can also use wildcard characters like "*" and "?". For example, enter "Par*" for results like Paris, Parigi, Paraguay, etc. Enter "Rom?" for search results like Rome and Roma.

• Follow this link for more about Searching by Keyword in LUNA.

Searching by Keyword in Luna Insight Java Client

A keyword search finds terms anywhere within the information that accompanies an image.

Here are some tips for searching by keyword in the Insight Java Client:

• all letters must be lower case
• the search finds exactly the term you type in the box
• include any hyphens in the name or term
• do not enter any punctuation except for hyphens. Use a blank where punctuation appears. For O'Brien, use o brien
• you can truncate a term by using * before or after a fragment of the term
• keyword searches work best if you use as few words as possible.

For more Digital Image Collection tips and techniques, see our "How-to" page.

For more details on searching for images, or for manuscripts (including those that have been digitized), consult the links in the Related Items sidebar.