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How to search our catalogue

You can search by any keywords, name (place or person) or document reference number by typing in the Search box.

You can order your search using the following options:

Relevance: all results are automatically displayed by relevance, the order is based on how frequently the search term appears in the record

Date: puts results in date order (oldest to newest)

Reference number: puts results in document reference number order

Title: displays the results in alphabetical order by title

You can limit your search using the following options

All fields: searches in all fields of the record (e.g. Title, Reference Number) – use this for the widest search

Reference number: searches in the reference number field only

Subject: will find records that have been linked to a specific subject e.g. mining. This will not find every record about mining because we have not yet tagged all our records, but it will provide a selection.

Title: searches in the title field only

You can also refine your search using the menu on the left of the page

Click Option and click the Update button to activate.

Level: limit search to Collection, Series, Item or Piece records

Subject: select records that have subject headings

Date: select records within a particular date range

Linked name: select records that relate to a person’s name or the name of a known organisation or company

Advanced search

To make your search more specific you can include and exclude keywords by using + to combine, – to exclude or “ “ for a phrase.

A search for Penryn School will find all records with both or either words.

A search for +Penryn +School will only find records that contain both words (but not necessarily next to each other).

A search for “Penryn School” will only find records with the words next to each other and in that order.

A search for +Penryn +School –plan will find all records with both Penryn and School but exclude those with the word plan.