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Searching British Online Archives

There are five ways to search for archival material on the British Online Archives (BOA) website:

• Website search
• Collection search
• Volume search
• Image viewer (UV) search
• Advanced search

Website Search

Performing a website search means your query will be submitted across all collections, volumes, and documents. This is performed by either selecting the search icon on the main menu or the search bar on the home page and entering your search term.

The subsequent results are displayed in order of relevance but can be changed to show the newest or oldest items first by selecting the "Sort by" drop-down menu.

A list of filters can be applied to refine a search. These filters are:

• Subscription. Selecting "Subscribed Content Only" will display results from collections for which you have access to via an individual or institutional license. To use this filter, you must be logged into the website.
• Resource level. Choose between viewing collections and/or documents in the search results.
• Subject. The available subjects are British Communism; Colonialism and Empire; Culture and Society; Economics; International Relations; Media and Communications; Medicine; Philosophy and Religion; Politics and Social Movements; Science and Technology; and War and Security. 
• Time period. You can use this filter to search chronologically. The available time periods are: Eighteenth Century; Nineteenth Century; Twentieth Century; Early Modern; Middle Ages; and Modern History. 
• Region. You can use this filter to search by geography. The available regions are Africa; Asia; Europe; the Middle East; Northern Europe; Oceania; the Americas; and Western Europe.
• Collections. You can use this filter to narrow down results to specific collections. All of our collections are included in this filter.

If you wish to perform a new search with no filters, you should first unselect any filters applied in your previous search or select “Clear all”.

Collection-Level Search

The collection-level search function is similar to the website search, displaying matches in the form of documents. The main difference is that each collection has a different range of filters depending on its contents. You can access this search by selecting the search icon on a collection landing page or entering your search term into “Search Collection…”.

The documents in British Government Information and Propaganda, 1939-2009, for instance, can be filtered by institution (e.g. Colonial Office, Ministry of Defence, etc.), sub-theme (e.g. Education, Police, etc.), and material type (e.g. Pamphlet, Poster, etc.). 

Volume-Level Search

The volume-level search function is the same as the collection-level search function. The only difference is that it will only show results from one volume, rather than across the entire collection. You can access this search by selecting a volume and entering your search term in “Search documents…”.

The filters in the volume-level search are the same as the filters in the collection-level search.

Image Viewer (UV) Search

The Universal Viewer (UV) incorporates a range of unique and useful technical features, including optical character recognition searching (OCR).

Each image on the website has undergone Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This means that you can search for words or phrases contained within images. To search for every mention of “Royal Air Force”, for instance, you should enter the phrase into the search bar. The results will be displayed on the contents bar. The relevant word or phrase will be highlighted in blue on the images themselves. 

Note: OCR text data is computer-generated for our documents through an automated process. While we aim for the highest quality OCR possible, due to the age and quality of the documents and the accuracy of the algorithms used, text transcriptions are not always as accurate as we would like.

Advanced Search

Advanced search applies to all of our search levels across the website.

Default search:

If you enter two or more words into the search box, without any other symbols, it will automatically perform an "OR" search. This means it will search for both the term and for each word individually.

Example:

If you enter American Revolution into the search box, it will search for

• American Revolution; or
• American; or
• Revolution.

Exact phrase search:

To search for an exact phrase, use quotation marks.

Example:

If you enter “American Revolution” into the search box, it will search for

• American Revolution

Search by title:

This search enables you to just search collection, volume, and document titles.

Example:

If you enter title:(colonial law) this will search for colonial law, but only within collection, volume, and document titles.

Search by description:

This search enables you to just search collection, volume, and document descriptions.

Example:

If you enter description:(colonial law) this will search for colonial law, but only within the collection, volume, and document descriptions. 

Start year search:

This search enables you to search for every collection, volume, and document that begins in a particular year.

Example:

If you enter coverage_start:(1939) this will search for all collections, volumes, and documents that begin in 1939.

Boolean searches:

Boolean operators tell search that some words are not optional and others should not be included in the results. Words with a "+" before them will definitely be included in the results. Words with a "-" before them will not be included in the results.

Example: 

If you enter +revolution -French -industrial the results will contain the word revolution and will not contain the words French or industrial.

Proximity search:

This search enables you to search for two words with one word in between. These terms can be in either order. 

Example: 

Entering “shipping lists”~1 will search for phrases such as “lists for shipping”.

Entering “First War”~1 will search for phrases such as “First World War”.

Boosting:

This search enables you to focus your search on a particular word or phrase. The “^1” tells the search which word or phrase to prioritise.

Example:  

If you enter “Cold War”^1 nuclear war you are telling the search function that the phrase “Cold War” is more important than the words nuclear and war.

Grouping search terms:

As in mathematics, brackets tell the search function where to start with your query.

Example:

If you enter (revolution OR 1812) +America this will search for revolution America and 1812 America.

Reserved characters:

Reserved characters are letters and symbols on the keyboard which tell our search tool to complete technical commands.

These characters are: +  -   =   &&  ||  > <   !  (  )   {  }  [   ]  ^  "   ~  *  ?   :   \   /

If you need to use these characters within your search, you can prefix it with \ to tell the search to treat it as a normal character.

Examples:

\&&

\=

\||