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Overview
Quick Search
Results Page
Folder
Simple Search Modifications
Preferences
History
Advanced Search
Expert Search
Overview
This Guide describes the mechanics of searching, navigating search results, and saving selected results in the British American Tobacco Documents Archive (BATDA). The Guide complements the Searching section of the BATDA Web site, which explains search syntax and provides more detailed information about constructing searches. Note that the search syntax detailed in the Searching section, including fielded searches and Boolean searches, is valid for all of the search options described below.
BATDA offers three search options: Quick, Advanced, and Expert. Quick Search, available on most pages of the BATDA Web site, is ideal for first time users or for a quick exploratory search.
Advanced Search provides two options, both of which help users without experience with Boolean operators to construct more precise searches. Advanced search also offers date range limitations and sorting options. Expert search provides space for searchers comfortable creating complex Boolean searches. This Guide will address the Quick Search option first.
This Guide is also available in PDF format.
Quick Search
In any of the Quick Search boxes, enter your search term(s) and click the Search button (or hit Enter).
By default, BATDA returns documents containing all of your search terms. The search above retrieves documents containing both ets and consultants.
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Results Page
Search-related pages on BATDA include a special Search Menu just beneath the main menu. The Search Menu allows you to move easily between search forms and Preferences, History, and Folder. These features are described below.
The results page is the same regardless of which search form you use to enter your search. A search box containing your search term(s) appears at both the top and the bottom of the results page, making it easy to refine, correct, or otherwise adjust your search. Beneath the box are tools that enable you to add date limitations, to sort your results in six different ways, and to move between brief and long display.
Search fields opens a list of field abbreviations you can use to search for your terms in specific fields. See Expanded Field Descriptions for an explanation of each field and Fielded Searches for details about creating targeted searches.
The purple line highlights your search query, the number of documents found, and which of the documents are currently displayed on the results page. The First, Previous, Next, & Last links above your search results allow you navigate through your results. By default, your search results appear in a brief format that includes title, author(s), document date, page count, Bates number, and search terms in context.
Next to the document Bates number(s) appears an option that allows you to move between adjacent documents; clicking Previous Bates or Next Bates takes you to the document record for the documents with the preceding or subsequent Bates numbers. You might choose to explore nearby documents, for example, if the current document refers to an attachment but the attachment does not appear. Adjacent documents might also be relevant to your search because they came from the same file, which might have contained related documents.
Search terms in context shows snippets of text to help you determine whether the document interests you. You can adjust the amount of text you see or remove it from your results altogether by changing your preferences.
You can view the entire document as a searchable PDF or in a page-by-page PDF mode. The latter option exists primarily to aid users with slower Internet connections.
The bookmark provides a permanent link to the document record. Use the bookmark when citing a document.
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Folder
Each document record in your results list ends with the line Save in folder. Clicking the link adds a document to the folder. Save selected documents, with notes, to email, download, or import to the bibliographic software EndNote. You can add notes at any time, but you must click the save button for every note you enter.
The Folder pops up in a new window when you add a document. You can also access the Folder at any time from the Search menu.
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Simple Search Modifications
The search box and related tools on the results page allow you to modify your search in various ways.
Limit by date range to narrow your results. Add dates in the From and to boxes in the format yyyymmdd.
By default, your results are sorted by relevance to your query. Using the Sort by pull down menu, you can sort your results by date, page count, and date loaded descending and ascending.
Switch between brief and long display using the pull-down menu on the right.
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Preferences
Preferences allows you to customize how BATDA displays your search results. Options include setting the number of results displayed on each page, the context displayed for search terms in context, and which fields appear in brief and long display.
You must save your preferences for them to take effect. Your preferences remain for as long as your search session is active and for 24 hours afterwards.
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History
History helps you keep track of your research. History contains your search queries as well as the number of results each query retrieved. Clicking on the search terms will rerun a search. You can download or email your history for future reference.
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Advanced Search
The advanced search page comprises two forms. The first form helps you construct basic Boolean queries. It also allows you to limit by date range and to choose a sort option, if desired; both modifications are optional.
with all the words: finds documents containing all of the words you list.
with the exact phrase: finds documents containing the exact words in the order you typed them.
with at least one of the words: finds documents containing at least one of the words you list.
Please note that you can use only one of these three boxes per search.
The second form on the Advanced Search page allows you to combine search terms using Boolean operators and also allows you to specify in which field(s) the term(s) should appear. For example, you can search for documents with certain authors and with certain words in the document title.
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Expert Search
Expert search provides ample space for users comfortable constructing complex Boolean queries. See Boolean Operators for more information about Boolean searching.
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