Explore collections

The first search bar you are presented with searches all records in the database, regardless of collection type.

You can use “quotes” to search for an exact phrase, a question mark? as a single character wildcard, the asterisk* as a multi-character wild card.

Warning! Colons : cause search errors. If search terms include a colon, replace with the question mark wildcard ?

Clicking one of the Museum Collection tiles will narrow the scope of your search to that specific collection.

Once you have searched or clicked into a collection or run a search, you will be presented with a list of records.

Along the left are categories you can further filter your results by. The list of available categories will update based on the current subset of records.

Double clicking a thumbnail will open the catalogue record where you can see more information about the item.

Records are sorted by catalogue number by default but can also be sorted by name and discipline.

Use the checkboxes or the “select all” option to select a batch of records to save, share or download.

Advanced search allows you to target your search on a specific field, listed in the drop-down labelled “Choose a criterion”.

Multiple fields can be selected and chained together using and/or/not Booleans to build complex queries.

Once a field has been selected, either choose a value from the drop-down or type in relevant search terms.

Different collections have different fields available on each record.

You can access batches of previously favourited records from this section.

Favourite lists are cleared every Saturday when the public catalogue is updated.

This section contains a list of the last 10 searches you have run on the website.

Clicking the eyeball will re-run the search and take you to the results.

Deleting the search will remove it from your history.