By Geoff Hobart

One of the most deceptively difficult things about online research (or any other form of research) is simply the act of finding things. Trying to find a single item across the 11,122 individual journal issues in the Robert A. Mason Digital Library can seem like a very daunting task.

To help ease the process- we would like to begin a series on search advice. We hope our efforts will make things a little bit easier when searching for items in the RAMDL:

Understanding Search Bars: There are multiple types of searching that can be done in the Robert A. Mason Digital Library and in the most current iteration of the digital library, their functions aren’t as clearly communicated as we would like.

• The Keyword Search: The box in the upper right corner is the “OCR Keyword Search” box. If you enter a keyword it will search all of the documents in the digital library and bring back every instance of that word or words. This is the broadest possible search, which can be a good place to start, especially if you can use unique terms that may not be found frequently. However since this search searches every word on every page of the digital library- including advertisments, searching by common philatelic terms may not provide very useful results. Once you have done a keyword search you may want to use some of the additional searching options listed below to narrow the search further. 
• Search This Record: This is a secondary keyword search that can be done after you click on an item. This allows you to do a keyword search only within the item itself. This can be very useful to quickly search the entire text of a journal issue or exhibit.

• The Advanced Search: The “Advanced Search” text just below the search box looks like a label but it is actually a link. If you click the “Advanced Search” text you will be brought to the advanced search screen that allows you to search specific collections and metadata fields that are attributed to each item. This is especially useful for looking for specific date ranges, publication titles, and other information that is specifically tagged to the items in the digital library. To use this, select the collection that you would like to search in and then click save. This will bring up a set of fields specific to the colleciton- books have different search fields than exhibits and journals, so selecting a collection is helpful. You can then use the dropdown menu to select one or more fields to search.

• Broadening Search Terms: It seems like simplistic advice, but experimenting with different forms of the same search term in a broad keyword search can allow you to narrow or broaden your searches in ways that can be more likely to bring success or lead you to other materials that might be useful to supplement your research. For example: trying Hermes Head, and Greek or Greece together might help to narrow a much broader search versus just: Hermes.
• Using Search Facets to Refine a Search: On the left side of the collection page are “search facets.” These are useful for refining a broad keyword search. Once you use the keyword search, you can then click on the links that appear within the facets to narrow the search by: Journal Title, Date of Publication, or Publisher. This can take a very broad search and narrow it considerably. Note: You must do the keyword search first before refining it. You will notice the search terms will appear at the top of the page.

Though this feels only like the tiniest tip of the iceberg, it should be just enough to begin to improve your searching in the Robert A. Mason Digital Library. I look forward to digging even deeper into searching as we continue this series. Good luck and happy searching!