button which enables you to obtain help on each field. You can also click here for more information on individual fields.General Searching Issues and Features
Fields available on the Full search form and Search builder
Bibliographic Criteria:
Subject Criteria:
Using the results of your search
Contact Information and Feedback
Using the Search menu to select which area of the database to search
Your choices depend on whether you are using the full Royal Historical Society bibliography search menu, the Irish History Online search menu, or the London's Past Online search menu.
If you are using the full Royal Historical Society bibliography, you have five options from which to choose:
Launching a search from the Irish History Online search menu (http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/ireland.asp) is the equivalent of choosing the second option from the list above. The other options are not available on the Irish History Online search menu, but a link enables you to switch to the search menu for the full Royal Historical Society database if you wish.
Launching a search from the London's Past Online search menu (http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/london.asp) is the equivalent of choosing the third option from the list above. The other options are not available on the London's Past Online search menu, but a link enables you to switch to the search menu for the full Royal Historical Society database if you wish.
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Using the Search menu to select a search method
The Search menu offers three ways of searching the database:
Quick search and Simple search
You can perform a Quick search from the RHS Bibliography welcome page.
You can select the Simple search option from the Search menu (you can use the following links to open the Search menu for the RHS Bibliography, Irish History Online or London's Past Online [links open in a new window or tab].)
Quick search and Simple search look for words across all the main database fields, covering authors, titles of books and articles, titles of journals and series, and subject information. Publishers' names and places of publication will not be included in your search.
On the Simple search page, you can restrict your search by period covered (this option is not available with a Quick search). Restricting by period covered is more effective than including periods such as 'early modern' or 'nineteenth-century' in your search terms. Click here for more information on restricting by period covered.
To run your search, click the Quick search button on the welcome page, or click the Search button at the bottom left of the Simple search screen, or press Return on your keyboard.
You can also use Load saved search to load a previously saved search.
Note: The Quick search and Simple search are intended primarily for quick, easy searching of the bibliography, and results may be less refined than those yielded by Full search or the Search builder, which enable you to specify the fields in which your search terms will be found (e.g. if you enter the word 'Russell' in Quick search or Simple search, your results will include works which were written by authors whose surnames or forenames include 'Russell'; works including the word 'Russell' in the title and works which include the word 'Russell' in their subject indexing; on Full search or the Search builder you can, for example, limit your search to works by authors whose surname is 'Russell'). Furthermore, you are not able to restrict a Quick search or Simple search by date of publication and you are not able to browse the indexes that are available on the Full search form or the Search builder.
You can select this option from the Search menu or from the link on the Simple search page (you can use the following links to open the Search menu for the RHS Bibliography, Irish History Online or London's Past Online [links open in a new window or tab].)
On the Full search form, you can fill in as many or as few lines as you like, from either or both parts of the form. (The only restriction is that Restrict by date of publication and Restrict by period covered can be used only to limit searches on other criteria. If you enter criteria only in one or other of these fields, or only in the two of them in combination, you will get an error message. However, you can, if you wish, use Restrict by period covered to limit a search on bibliographical criteria only, or Restrict by date of publication to limit a search on subject criteria only.)
Everything that you enter in the form will be searched for in each record., e.g. entering 'Porter, Roy Sydney' in the Author field and 'medicine' in the Subject classification field will return records by Roy Porter that have been categorised as dealing with medicine. (This means that all lines on the Full search form are linked by a Boolean AND; to use other Boolean operators (OR; AND NOT) you must use the Search builder.)
Each line of the form contains up to five elements:
button which enables you to obtain help on each field. You can also click here for more information on individual fields.To run your search click the Search button at the bottom left of the screen, or press Return on your keyboard.
You can also use Load saved search to load a previously saved search.
You can select this option directly from the Search menu or by clicking on the Search builder link in the text beneath the heading of the Full search form (you can use the following links to open the Search menu for the RHS Bibliography, Irish History Online or London's Past Online [links open in a new window or tab].)
The Search builder allows you to construct your search by adding fields from a drop-down menu. The following facilities are available, in addition to those provided by the Full search form:
To use the Search builder: From the Select a search field drop-down menu, select the first field you wish to use in your search. Highlighting the field name and clicking the Add field to query button will cause the selected search field to be added to the screen so that you can insert your search term. To add further fields, highlight a field name from the Select another search field drop-down menu and click Add field to query. As many fields as you want can be added in this way. Fields can be added in any order and it is possible to add more than one occurrence of a particular field (for example, if you are searching for a co-authored work, you can incorporate two or more author fields in your search so that you can search for all the authors).
Adding a line in the Search builder but not entering any information will not impede your search. However, if you have added a line in error, you can remove it using the button at the right-hand end of the line marked with a cross. Pressing clear form will remove all the lines in your search.
Boolean operators: By default, if you add two or more lines to the Search builder, they are linked with a Boolean AND, but the Search builder also allows you to link lines by OR or AND NOT. If you add more than one line to the search then, as each line is added to the search, a box with a drop-down menu will appear at the end of the previous line. This defaults to AND, but clicking on the arrow gives you further choices of OR and AND NOT. For example, searching for 'Porter, Roy Sydney' as an author, and 'enlightenment' as a title word linked by AND will return all those works by Roy Porter that have 'enlightenment' in their title. However, selecting OR and running the search would return all the works by Roy Porter in the database (whether or not 'enlightenment' appears in the title) as well as all the works in the database where 'enlightenment' is included in the title (whether or not Roy Porter wrote them). Selecting AND NOT for the same search would return all the works in the database written by Roy Porter that do NOT include 'enlightenment' in the title. Note that:
As on the Full search form, you have access to:
button at the right-hand end of the line. You can also click here for more information on individual fields;To run your search click the Search button at the bottom left of the screen, or press Return on your keyboard.
You can also use Load saved search to load a previously saved search.
Go to Help Contents or see our Tutorials.
General Searching Issues and Features
Words and Phrases in Quick search and Simple search
The Quick search and Simple search use a word index. This means that the text that you enter is matched to words that occur in the parts of the record which are covered by Quick search and Simple search, whatever their position. If you enter more than one word, the program will search for records that contain ALL of the words that you have entered in the parts of the record which are covered by Quick search and Simple search.
You cannot search for a phrase using Quick search or Simple search, and you should not include punctuation or inverted commas in your search (to find words containing the possessive apostrophe, type just the word itself: e.g. to find 'London's', type 'London').
Right-hand truncation is used in this field, which means that words that you enter are matched to any word in the database which begins with the text that you use; e.g. 'Agricultur' will match 'Agriculture' and 'Agricultural'. The availability of right truncation means that wildcard characters need not be used.
You can search for words of any length but short words may produce a large number of matches and slow down your search or cause it to fail. Some commonly used articles and prepositions ('a', 'an', 'and', 'in', 'of', 'or', 'the', 'to') will therefore be treated as stop words and will be ignored.
In addition, 'England', 'Britain' and 'history' are treated as stop words and will be ignored, because they match too many records and will do little to refine the results of your search.
Words and Phrases in Full search and Search builder
On Full search and the Search builder, most fields have term indexes: this means that anything that you type into the box will be treated as a phrase, and the program will search for it at the start of the field. This applies to the Author name, Subject classification, Place index, Person as subject and Restrict by publication type fields, and to the Journal or series field on the Full search form (and on the Search builder if the drop-down is set to begins with or is exactly).
The Title and Subject (free text) fields have word indexes, as does the Journal or series field on the Search builder if the drop-down is set to contains word(s) beginning with or contain(s) exact words. This means that the text that you enter is matched to words that occur in the appropriate field, whatever their position. If you enter more than one word in the Title or Subject (free text) fields (or in the Journal or series field when set to search for words), the program will search for records that contain ALL of the words that you have entered ANYWHERE in the appropriate fields. Note that:
On the Search builder, you can choose to search Journal or series using either a term index or a word index; see help on this field for more information.
See also Truncation and Wildcards.
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Truncation and Wildcards in Quick search and Simple search
When you use Quick search or Simple search, words that you enter will be searched for with right truncation. This means that any word that you enter will be matched against words that begin with what you have entered: e.g. 'port' will find records containing the words 'port', 'ports', 'portage', 'Porter' etc.
The availability of right truncation means that wildcard characters need not be used.
Truncation and Wildcards in Full search and Search builder
When using the Full search form or the Search builder, text that you enter will by default be searched for with right truncation (except for the Subject classification field, and for the fields which search for dates (Restrict by date of publication; Restrict by period covered)). This means that entering 'Smith, J' in the Author field will give results for 'Smith, J. Challenor', 'Smith, J. P.', 'Smith, J. T.' etc.; running the search with 'medic' in the Title field will give results for 'medical', 'medicine', 'medicinal', etc.
The availability of right truncation means that wildcard characters need not be used.
However, on the Search builder you can use the drop-down in the second column to disable right truncation if you wish - you can set the Title and Subject (free text) fields to contains exact word(s) or the Author, Journal or series, Place index and Person as subject fields to term must match index (so that the whole field must match exactly the text that you enter - in this case, typing 'Smith, J' in the Author field would produce no results; you would need to type the full name as it appears in the browsable index and this may be useful when you wish to distinguish between authors with similar names). See help on the specific fields for more information.
The drop-down for the Journal or series field on the Search builder also gives you the choice of whether to search by term or by word; see help on the Journal or series field for more information.
You cannot carry out truncated searches in the Subject classification field.
See also Words and Phrases.
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Searches are not case sensitive. 'PORTER, ROY SYDNEY' and 'porter, roy sydney' will both match 'Porter, Roy Sydney'.
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Some words are ignored in the Quick search, Simple search and Subject (free text) fields. These are: 'and', 'the', 'of', 'in', 'to', 'a', 'an', 'or', 'Britain', 'England', 'history'. The inclusion of these words in such searches would increase the risk of searches failing (because so many matches have to be processed) and would do little to refine your results. You can, however, still search for these words in the Title field. You can also carry out Place index searches for 'England' or 'Britain' on the Full search form or Search builder.
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It is not necessary to attempt to include accents or diacritical in your search terms, e.g. a search for author 'Bemont' will include 'Bémont' in results. For Author or Person as subject names containing 'æ' or 'œ' you can type 'ae' or 'oe' respectively; when searching the Title field or Subject (free text) field for words containing such characters it will be best to try using both the characters themselves and 'ae' or 'oe' as appropriate.
Accents that can be represented by all Windows systems will be shown in your results, but other accents and diacritical marks are not displayed. Greek text has been transliterated according to ISO843, with the following exceptions:
The variety of sources from which material has been drawn means that Cyrillic characters have been transliterated according to a variety of schemes, although we have standardized them as far as possible using the scheme employed by the University Library, Cambridge.
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To cancel a search while the "Searching ..." message is displayed, press your browser's stop button and then reload the page using your browser's reload button (or by pressing the F5 key in Firefox or Windows Explorer).
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Fields available on the Full search form and Search builder
You can search for a work using Bibliographical Criteria: Author, Title, Journal or series, and Date of publication. You can also search by subject criteria: (Subject (free text), Subject classification, Place index, Person as subject and Period covered). You can also combine Bibliographical and Subject Criteria in a single search. More information about the fields and tips for using them can be found using the links above.Searching using bibliographic criteria:
The data have been built up over time from a variety of sources, and we have not yet been able to standardize all author names, so that the same author may be described in more than one way - e.g. using surname and full forenames, using surname and first forename, or using surname and initial(s). For best results, therefore, you should enter the surname of the author you wish to find, followed by a comma, a space and the initial of the first forename, without a full stop (e.g. 'Porter, R' or 'Abrahams, J'). The author field operates by default with right truncation, so you need enter no more of the name.
If this does not give sufficient precision, because there is more than one author matching the same surname and first initial (e.g. 'Archer, Ian Wallace' and 'Archer, Ian, 1960-' represent different authors), you can, after entering the surname and first initial (e.g. 'Archer, I'), click the index button to see how author names beginning 'Archer, I' have been described in the database. Once you have identified the name for which you wish to search in the browsable index, click on the arrow button next to the name; this will insert the full name in the Full search form or Search builder. For further help on using browsable indexes, click here.
If you do not enter the author name in the format suggested above, the application will attempt to find the best match to what you entered. If you enter a single word (e.g. 'Beales'), the application will treat it as a surname and look for all authors whose surname begins "Beales" (but, if you are using the Search builder and have disabled right truncation, the search will match only authors whose complete name is "Beales", so there will be no matches). If you enter more than one word, without including a comma, the application will search for these words in the author field, but will not distinguish between surname and forenames, e.g. if you enter 'Richard John' in the author search field (without disabling truncation), the search will match 'Richards, John', 'Johnson, Richard Freeman, 1961-' and 'Worrall, Richard John'. Where a record has more than one author, matches may result from hits on multiple authors, e.g. the above search will find a record with authors 'Parker, Richard W.; Ives, Tony; Allan, John'.
You may wish to search for more than one author name because an author changed his or her surname, or because the author you want to find is described in different ways in the browsable index (but searching by surname and first initial will lead to confusion with another author). You cannot enter more than one author name in the Full search form and you should therefore use the Search builder, inserting multiple author fields, one for each variant, and linking them with a Boolean OR. You can add as many author fields as you need in this way.
However, where an author has published under markedly differing names, we have endeavoured to link them as equivalents so that all names are searched for automatically. e.g. if you search for 'Knowles, David', records for 'Knowles, Michael Clive [i.e. Knowles, David]' will automatically be returned as well. This is indicated in the browsable index as follows:
Knowles, David EQUIVALENT TO: Knowles, Michael Clive [i.e. Knowles, David]
Searching for works written by more than one author can be carried out by entering words from all the author names into the author field without punctuation, but can be carried out with more precision by using the Search builder. To search for a work by multiple authors, insert and fill an author field for each author, and connect the fields with a Boolean AND.
Authors of edited texts: To find the authors of edited texts, search not only using the Author field, but also using Person as subject (using a separate search if you are using the Full search form, or linking the fields with OR if you are using the Search builder.) For some edited texts, only the editor/s are listed as authors and the author is listed as a Person as subject. For example, the record 'Reynolds, Noel B.; Saxonhouse, Arlene W. (ed.). Thomas Hobbes: three discourses. Chicago (IL): Chicago University Press, 1995. ix, 181 p.' is not listed under Hobbes as an author, but is listed under Hobbes in the Person as subject field.
The browsable index for this field also includes links to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, to Who was Who and to the personal names index of the British National Register of Archives. These links enable you to view a biography of the person, or a list of his or her archives as known to the National Register of Archives. Links to the Oxford DNB and Who was Who are currently provided only for some authors who have been matched to names in our index of historical personages, and links to the NRA are currently provided only for those for whom a link to the Oxford DNB exists - we will be developing this service further in future updates. A subscription is needed to view a life in the Oxford DNB or in Who was Who; however, if you do not have a personal or institutional subscription, you may be able to log on using your public library membership number if you belong to a UK public library: the Oxford DNB and Who was Who login screens give more information.
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Enter as much or as little of the title as you know. If you enter more than one word, they will be combined with a Boolean AND operator, so results will be given where ALL the words entered are found ANYWHERE in the title, in ANY ORDER, and whether or not they are separated by other text, e.g. if you enter 'housing london' it will match 'Housing London: the first 2000 years', 'The London almshouses: six centuries of housing for the aged' and 'Race and housing in London's East End: continuity and change', but not 'Leading the way: council housing in Westminster' (this title contains only one of the specified words). For guidance on truncation in the Title field, see Truncation and Wildcards.
Searching by Title searches not only the title proper, but also any translation or interpolated explanation of the title, and uniform or alternative titles (where recorded).
Do not include punctuation or inverted commas in your search (to find words containing the possessive apostrophe, type just the word itself: e.g. to find 'London's', type 'London'; if you are using the Search builder, make sure that you have selected the contains word(s) beginning with option). Avoid including short words such as 'of' and 'in', as these will slow down your search.
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Use this field to find works in a particular journal, or in a particular series.
On the Full search form, anything that you enter into the field is searched for as a phrase at the start of the journal or series title. 'Essex' will therefore match 'Essex Recusant' and 'Essex Review', but will not match 'Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society'
On the Search builder, you can choose how to search the field, using the drop-down list in the second column.
Entering the start of a journal or series and clicking the index button will help you refine your search by providing an alphabetical list of all journal and series titles in the database that begin with the text that you have entered. Clicking on the arrow button next to the name of the journal or series will transfer the title to the Full search form or the Search builder. Note that:
Where one journal title is known to be a continuation of another, they have been defined in the database as equivalents, so that a search for either title will produce results for both, e.g. searching for Historical Journal will also return results for its former title, Cambridge Historical Journal. This is indicated in the browsable index as follows:
Historical Journal EQUIVALENT TO: Cambridge Historical Journal
You can click here to see a list of the journals which are currently searched for material relevant to the Bibliography. Clicking on any of the journal titles in this list will take you to a display of the records from this journal that are contained in the Bibliography (your search will be carried out on the complete database of Royal Historical Society, Irish History Online and London's Past Online records).
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Restrict by date of publication
In this field you can specify a range of dates between which a work has been published. Any record that matches the range that you specify in whole or in part will be returned by the database, e.g. if you search for '1980-1982' works published in 1980, 1981 and 1982 will be returned, as will any multi-volume work published in, e.g., 1978-81. If a work has more than one date of publication (e.g. journal numbers published in one year 'for' another) your search will return matches with either or both of them.
BOTH date boxes must be filled in, although the date for the second box can be identical to the date in the first (if, for instance, you know that a work was published during 1980, you can enter '1980' in both boxes).
To use this field you MUST fill in at least one other field (or at least two other fields if one of them is Restrict by period covered - i.e. you can specify both Restrict by date of publication and Restrict by period covered but you must complete another field as well).
Note that even on the Search builder Restrict by date of publication can be combined with other fields only using a Boolean AND (additionally, if you change the Boolean operator following a Restrict by date of publication field to OR or AND NOT, this change will be ignored, and the search will run as though the operator were set to AND).
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Restrict by publication type (available on Search builder only)
You can restrict your results to a particular type of publication. It is best to place this field last in your list of search criteria. You can choose between:
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Searching using subject Criteria:
This enables a search of any field in the database that may contain subject information (including titles, but excluding authors, places of publication and publishers). Records are returned if words match the text that you have entered, wherever they occur in the field.
Note that the other subject indexing fields that are available (Subject classification, Place index, Person as subject) may enable you to obtain more precise results because these fields use controlled languages (hierarchically organised in the case of Subject classification and Place index, so that selecting a term from a high level in the hierarchy automatically includes all the subjects and places that are grouped beneath it). However these controlled languages have so far been applied systematically only to post-1992 publications in the Royal Historical Society data and to data from Irish History Online and from London's Past Online. In the Royal Historical Society data, works published 1946-92 were indexed using non-controlled terms which we are in the process of mapping on to the current controlled scheme, so that the Subject classification, Place index, Person as subject fields will currently give useful but incomplete results for these publications. Furthermore, for most pre-1946 publications in the Royal Historical Society data, little subject information is provided, except what is present in the title. If you wish to make a thorough search by subject of pre-1992 publications the best results will therefore currently be obtained by using BOTH Subject (free text) AND the other subject fields (as appropriate), either in successive searches using the Full search form, or combined with a Boolean OR on the Search builder.
When using Subject (free text):
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This field offers a powerful way of searching by subject because it uses a controlled hierarchical language and because all searches are generic, which makes it especially useful if you wish to search for a broad subject area.
However, it will give best results only for publications of 1993 onwards and for records from Irish History Online and from London's Past Online. For pre-1993 publications, use this field in conjunction with Subject (free text); see the help on this field for more information.
The text that you enter in this field must match exactly the terms used in the database; to use this field effectively, you will need to consult the browsable index. You can do this either by browsing the hierarchy or by using the alphabetical list.
Selecting a subject classification term by browsing the hierarchy
Subject areas covered by the bibliography have been classified under the following headings:
You can view this list of categories by clicking on the index button on the same line as Subject classification, without entering any text into the field. It is then possible to expand the list under each category by clicking the '+' button next to each heading. This shows the lower terms which form links that you can follow to display each lower term in its own right. You can continue to travel down the hierarchy until you find the term that you want; it can then be inserted in the Full search form or the Search builder using the button. Note that:
Selecting a subject classification term using the alphabetical list
Alternatively, you can enter a word (or the start of a word) representing the subject in which you are interested into the Subject Classification field on the Full search form or the Search builder, click on the index button to see if there are any matches, and then use the links to BROADER TERM/S or to preferred terms (indicated by USE) to travel up the hierarchy and find appropriate Primary keywords. If the text which you enter produces no matches, try a synonym, or use only part of the word if you entered a complete one, e.g. instead of 'Administrative', try entering 'Administrat'. Avoid using terms that include a definition of period: for example, entering 'Tudor rebellion' or 'Anglo-Saxon religion' and clicking on the index button will not produce any matches - enter 'Rebellion' or 'Religion' and use Restrict by period covered to define the period in which you are interested.
While using the browsable index, you can also jump to the terms beginning with any letter of the alphabet by using the A-Z links at the top of the list.
Click here for more help on using the browsable indexes.
Searches in this field are generic, i.e. when you enter a term, the database is searched for all terms positioned below it in the hierarchy. e.g. if you search for 'Transport', the database will also be searched for records carrying the terms 'Transport policy and regulation', 'Railways', 'Roads', 'Merchant shipping', 'Air transport' and other terms placed below the term 'Transport' in the hierarchy.
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This field offers a powerful way of searching for places because it uses a controlled hierarchical language and because all searches are generic.
However, this field will give best results only for publications of 1993 onwards and for records from Irish History Online. For pre-1993 publications, use this field in conjunction with Subject (free text): see help on this field for more information. Furthermore, for specific locations, such as towns and villages, Subject (free text) will usually give the best results irrespective of date of publication.
Using the Place Index field with London's Past Online and Irish History Online
If you are searching for titles about the Greater London area and are searching from the London's Past Online search menu or have selected London material only on the Royal Historical Society search menu page (so that the heading of the search page reads London's Past Online), there is no need to make any entry in the Place index field: your searches are automatically confined to material relating to the Greater London area, although you can use the Place index field to specify an additional place to which records must refer (e.g. 'France' for trading or other connections between London and France), or to specify a more precise location within the Greater London area (to view a list of places in the London area, enter 'London' into the text box and click the index button).
Similarly, if you are searching for titles about Ireland and are searching from the Irish History Online search menu or have selected Irish material only on the Royal Historical Society search menu page (so that the heading of the search page reads Irish History Online), there is no need to make any entry in the Place index field: your searches are automatically confined to material relating to Ireland, although you can use the Place index field to specify an additional place to which records must refer, or to specify a more precise location within Ireland (to view a list of places in Ireland, enter 'Ireland' into the text box and click the index button).
Truncation in the Place Index field
On the Full search form, this field operates with right truncation so you do not need to enter the complete place name used by the Bibliography. For example, 'Manchester' will give results; you do not have to use 'Manchester (Lancashire)'. Also, searching for 'Manchester' will include other place names beginning 'Manchester', such as 'Manchester, diocese of' or 'Manchester (Lancashire), Portico Library'. This also means that, if you search for the name of a county town such as 'Leicester', you will obtain results not only for Leicester itself, but also for the county of Leicestershire and (because of the generic searching) for places in Leicestershire, since the county name is an extension of the name of the county town. However, you can still consult the browsable index and use the full form of the name if you wish to search more precisely. For example, searching for 'Leicester (Leicestershire)' will limit your results to records about Leicester itself, although, as truncation is still in operation, your results will still include specific places or institutions in Leicester identified by the Bibliography, such as 'Leicester (Leicestershire), University'.
On the Search builder, you have the choice of using right truncation or of limiting your search to an exact match with a term selected from the index.
See the separate section of this guide for more help on truncation.
To consult the browsable index and see how places have been described in the Bibliography, you can either browse the hierarchy or use the alphabetical list.
Selecting a place indexing term by browsing the hierarchy
Places covered by the bibliography have been grouped hierarchically under the following headings:
You can view this list of categories by clicking on the index button on the Place index line, without entering any text into the field. It is then possible to expand the list under each category by clicking the '+' button next to each heading. This shows the lower terms which form links that you can follow to display each lower term in its own right. You can continue to travel down the hierarchy until you find the term that you want; it can then be inserted in the Full search form or the Search builder using the button. NOTE, HOWEVER, THAT IF YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR SPECIFIC LOCATIONS, SUCH AS TOWNS OR VILLAGES, RATHER THAN COUNTIES OR LARGER UNITS, Subject (free text) SHOULD BE USED FOR BEST RESULTS.
Selecting a place indexing term using the alphabetical list
Alternatively, enter the name of the place in which you are interested (or the start of the name) into the Place index field on the Full search form or the Search builder, and click on the index button to see if there are any matches. You can click on "+" (if present) to show any lower terms grouped under the terms displayed, or follow links to broader terms.
While using the browsable index, you can also jump to the terms beginning with any letter of the alphabet by using the links at the top of the list.
Click here for more help on using browsable indexes.
Searches in this field are generic, i.e. when you enter a term, the database is searched for all terms positioned below it in the hierarchy. e.g. if you search for 'Devon', the database will search for all places grouped below 'Devon' in the hierarchy, such as 'Ashburton (Devon)', 'Dartmoor (Devon)' etc.
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Use this field if you want to find works about a particular historical person. This field works best for post-1992 publications in the Royal Historical Society data and for data from Irish History Online; for earlier publications and for data from London's Past Online, supplement your search by using Subject (free text) for more complete results; see help on this field for more information.
Enter the surname first, followed (if you wish), by a comma and a space and then the first initial or any forenames (e.g. 'Gladstone, W' or 'Gladstone, William' or 'Gladstone, William Ewart'). On the Full search form, automatic truncation means that any of these examples will match 'Gladstone, William Ewart, 1809-1898'. On the Search builder, you can choose from the drop-down menu whether to enter the beginning of a name or the exact name ('term must match index'), but the beginning of the name will usually be most effective as names in the index include dates of death and other supplementary information. (If you enter more than one word without punctuation, the application will search for them anywhere in the Person as subject field, without attempting to distinguish between surnames and forenames, in the same way as when multiple words are entered without punctuation in the Author field. 'Richard John' will therefore match 'Richardson, John, Sir, 1787-1865'; 'Johnson, Richard, fl. 1592-1622' and a record carrying both 'Richard II, king, 1367-1400' and 'Wycliffe, John, d. 1384'.)
For precise results, you can use the browsable index to help you make a selection, particularly where there may be some doubt about how the person has been catalogued (for example, if you enter 'Webb, Beatrice' in the Person as subject field, and then click on the index button, you will be guided to the full form of the name, as used in the bibliography: 'Webb, Martha Beatrice, Lady Passfield, 1858-1943'; if you enter 'Fane, Rachel' and use the browsable index, you will be guided to 'Bourchier, Rachel, countess of Bath, 1613-1680', the name used in the bibliography).
The browsable index for this field also includes links to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, to Who was Who and to the personal names index of the British National Register of Archives. These links enable you to view a biography of the person, or a list of his or her archives as known to the National Register of Archives. Links are not yet provided for all people listed by the bibliography whose lives are contained in the Oxford DNB, and links to the NRA are currently provided, with a few exceptions, only for those for whom a link to the Oxford DNB exists - we will be developing this service further in future updates. A subscription is needed to view a life in the Oxford DNB or in Who was Who; however, if you do not have a personal or institutional subscription, you may be able to log on using your public library membership number if you belong to a UK public library: the Oxford DNB and Who was Who login screens give more information.
The Person as subject field is also useful for finding the original authors of texts that have later been edited (e.g. where an edition of the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham has been produced), or for letter writers whose correspondence has been collected together. This is because, for some edited texts, the author is listed as a Person as subject, and only the editor/s are listed as authors. However, for the fullest results in these cases, you should not only search using the Person as subject field, but also using the Author field (using a separate search if you are using the Full search form, or linking the fields with OR if you are using the Search builder.)
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In this field you can specify a period which works must cover in whole or in part. There is an option to limit your search to close matches only. The majority of pre-1946 publications have not been categorised using this field, so, if you use this field to restrict your search, most pre-1946 publications will be omitted (exceptions are works on Imperial and Commonwealth history, and data from London's Past Online). Note also that records are categorised by period covered with varying precision; click here for more information.
Specify dates as years (e.g. '1900', '1066', '800'). Dates BC (or BCE) should be entered following a '-' sign (e.g. '-55') although dates will display as BC in your search results.
Both date boxes must be filled in, although, if you wish to find material relating to a single year, the date for the second box can be identical to the date in the first (if, for instance, you wish to find material dealing with the Great Fire of London you can put '1666' in both boxes).
When you search by period covered records which overlap in any degree with your selected date range will be returned, so, if you enter the range 1660-1666, records indexed as covering 1664, 1665-90, 1650-1662, 1650-1672 and 1000-1700 will all be returned if they match your other search criteria. Note that:
If you use this field, you must fill in at least one other field (or at least two other fields if one of them is Restrict by date of publication).
Note that even on the Search builder Restrict by period covered can be combined with other fields only using a Boolean AND (additionally, if you change the Boolean operator following a Restrict by period covered field to OR or AND NOT, this change will be ignored, and the search will run as though the operator were set to AND).
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For some fields in the database, it is possible to view a list of all the values that the field contains. These lists are called browsable indexes and are available when using the Full search form and Search builder , but not when using Quick search or Simple search. The aim of the lists is to guide you to the terms that have been used in the database so that you can obtain the best results for your search. You can approach them in either of two ways:
All browsable indexes provide you with information on synonyms. For example, where authors are known under varying names, you may see, next to a name in the list, the text 'USE:' followed by another name formatted as a link, e.g.:
Matthew, Colin USE: Matthew, Henry Colin Gray
In such cases, you can follow the link to the preferred form of the name, but clicking the arrow next to the first name will cause the preferred form of the name to be inserted in the Full search form or the Search builder. In cases where there is more than one preferred form, however, you must click on one or other of the preferred terms to follow the link to that term, e.g., for Journals or series:
Historical Studies USE Historical Studies (Irish Conference of Historians); Historical Studies (University of Melbourne); Historical Studies: Australia & New Zealand
In some cases, in the Subject classification list, it may be appropriate to search on BOTH of the preferred terms to obtain the desired result, e.g.
Poor relief USE Poverty; Welfare
In such cases you can use the Search builder to search for both terms, combining them with a Boolean AND.
The browsable indexes for Author, Person as subject and Journal or series also provide you with information on names which have been treated as equivalents, for example names in religion or pseudonyms, or journals which continue or are continued by the journal on the list. For example:
Knowles, David EQUIVALENT TO: Knowles, Michael Clive [i.e. David Knowles]
In such cases, you can follow the link to the equivalent name, but clicking the arrow next to the first name to insert it into the Full search form or the Search builder will lead to all the equivalents being included in your search.
For more help on the special features of the subject classification and place index browsable indexes, see the help on Subject classification and Place index. For help on the Oxford DNB, Who was Who and NRA links provided on the browsable index for the Author or Person as subject fields, see the help for the latter field.
Searches on terms inserted into the search forms from the browsable indexes for subject classification and place index may not always yield results when you are searching Irish material only, London material only, Scottish material only and Latest additions only because the lists display all the terms occurring in the database, irrespective of whether they occur in the part of it that you are searching. However, in these circumstances, the browsable indexes for the Author name, Journal or series and Person as subject fields are limited to terms occurring in the section of the database that you are searching.
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Results are presented on screen with title, author and date of publication.
By default, results are sorted by date of publication, with the most recent first. It is possible to arrange the results alphabetically by author by selecting the Sort results by author option. The sort is based on the first author listed.
Up to 100 results are displayed on each screen. If your search has retrieved more than 100 results, clicking on Next 100 results at the top of the list, or at the foot of the list, takes you to the next set of 100 rht>
Clicking on the highlighted title of a work will take you to its full bibliographic record, with accompanying subject information. If you wish to view the full record for more than one of the titles, click the check box to the left of each title that you wish to view in detail. Clicking the view marked records button at the top or foot of the list will take you to the full records for all of the marked titles. Marks can be spread across more than one page of results, but you cannot view more than 150 marked records at once. If you wish to view the full record for all of the results on a page, click the Mark all records on this page button at the top or foot of the screen and then click the view marked records button.
By clicking on Save this search you can save the search whose results you are viewing for later use.
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The detailed display of a record may contain the following sections:
These appear in the following fields:
for the item that you are viewing is provided in the detailed results display of most records. COPAC is the combined online catalogue of major university and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the National Library of Wales/Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru. If you click on the link, a search is carried out for the title of the record (if it is a book) or for the title of the journal or book containing the record (if it is an article). COPAC will then return a ranked list of matches, with the most relevant first, and you can see if the title is available in a library to which you have access (please contact the individual libraries for information about access).
link is provided from the detailed results display of records carrying an ISBN or ISSN. When you click on the button the OCLC OpenURL resolver registry is checked to see if you are in a library whose OpenURL resolver is included there.
OpenURL resolver for articles in journals for which we have recorded an ISSN. A search is launched of a selected range of publishers' sites and online subscription services for relevant online text. Note that:
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Viewing Bibliographical Details Only
This option gives a compact format for printing records out.
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It is also possible to view records in XML by clicking on View records in XML. Subject information is not displayed in this mode. Use your browser's back button to return to the previously used display mode.
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To view records in EndNote format, select the EndNote link in the display format menu at the top of the Record details page. You will be given the option to open the file or to save it on your own computer (Google Chrome users may find that the file is saved automatically). If you save the file, you can import it into the EndNote bibliographical software package.
Note that the file is automatically given the name rhs_bib_download.txt. If you wish to keep any previous downloaded files, rename them before downloading a new file, or save the new file in a different folder.
To use the file in EndNote, you must first open the library into which you wish to import the records. Then select File -> Import from the EndNote menu. In the Import dialogue box, identify the location and name of the file that you have saved; set Import Option: to "EndNote Import"; select your preferred option for the handling of duplicates; set Text translation: to "Unicode (UTF-8)".
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Selecting Save this search on the brief display allows you to save the search from which the results were generated to run again at any point later in your current session. You will be asked to give this search a name. The database will then store your search with the name that you chose and a number which is allocated automatically.
If you click on Load saved search on the Simple search, Full search or Search builder pages, you will see a list of your saved searches, identified by name and number; clicking on the appropriate number will allow you to run the same search on the database; you can modify the search before you run it. Saved searches are lost when you end your session on the Bibliography.
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Using the results of your search
Your attention is drawn to the Terms and Conditions of Use.
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Z39.50
See our separate page on this topic.
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This application
should now function fully with recent versions of Internet Explorer and with
Netscape, versions 4.7 and later.
Some presentation styles, however, may not render in Netscape 4.7 and the display will be improved if you download the latest version.
Use the following links to download the latest versions:
Netscape.
Internet Explorer.
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If you are encountering persistent problems in using the database, and these are not dealt with in the Known Problems section above, please email us (or you can fill in the online form).
Also, if you have information concerning records you believe to be missing, or incorrect (having read the Scope and Aims of the Bibliography), please use our feedback forms or email us. We will then review our data and make any additions or corrections as appropriate, but please note that any alterations made as a result may not be displayed until a new set of data is transferred to the website.
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