Searching
You can enter search criteria by typing into the text boxes or selecting
an option from a pick list and then clicking one of the "Display:" options.
Any combination of fields may be used.
Some fields have an option of searching as either "keyword", "phrase", or "exact".
Exact: This will only return records where the field value is exactly what
you input (e.g. searching for Materials oil on canvas will only retrieve
records where the material field is exactly oil on canvas
Phrase: Returned records will contain exactly what you input, but may have
more text before or after it (e.g. searching oil on canvas will also
return oil on canvas mounted on board, oil on canvas and velvet, etc.)
Keyword: This will return all records that contain all of the words
entered in that field, in any order (e.g. searching oil on canvas will
also return oil and enamel on canvas , etc.)
Displaying Search Results
If your search has one or more results, you'll see four panes presented -- Results, Facets, Maps, and Statistics.
Results
There are three options for display.
List is ideal for seeing summaries of
many records at once.
Full shows the full details of each record, including
images.
Grid is ideal for viewing many objects at once while also
displaying images. Clicking the museum number in any view will bring
you to the Full view of that object. Clicking an image will open the full
resolution image in a new tab.
Facets
After performing a search, clicking the "Facets" tab will show you a list, in descending frequency order,
of values which appear the records returned by your search. For example, if you search for Artist
Hofmann, Hans (exact), you will see under Classification
"Photograph” 88, "Painting” 50 etc., meaning there are
88 photographs and 50 paintings by Hans Hofmann, etc.
Clicking on the name of a facet will refine your search, returning only the results matching that value.
Statistics
The Statistics pane allows you to count the number of values that occur for items in your search result. It is useful for simple statistical summaries and cross-tabulations.
For example, if search for works created in 1820 ("date made = 1820"), you could select "Artist" as the "field to summarize on:" in the Statistics pane, then click "Display Summary", and you'd get a list of the artists whose works were made in that year, with a count of the number of those works.
It is important to note that this function summarizes the results of the current search, not of the entire collection.