Items, Item Types and Related Items

This database contains information about articles held in the collections of Bradford’s Museums and Galleries. All of these articles are described with a written record, and most are illustrated with a photograph. A few may have other media attached to them, such as audio files. Each of these packages of associated data is known as an ‘item’.

These items are grouped together into one of eight ‘Item Types’. These correspond to the way in which Bradford’s collections are organized. These are:

• Archaeology
• Art
• Bradford Heritage Recording Unit (Photographs & oral history)
• Education (Articles used by the education & outreach team)
• Geology
• Industrial History
• Natural Sciences
• Social History

At present the only collection represented in the database is the photographic collection of the Bradford Heritage Recording Unit. Other collections are under development.

An item may be related to other items in the database. For example this relationship could be that it is part of the same collection or that it has a related topic.

There are several ways to search the database. Some methods search across all the collections or item types and some restrict the search to a single collection or item type. These are detailed below.

General Search

The ‘General Search’ text search appears on all pages and is located on the left of the page along with the search links.

When a word or phrase is typed into the box and the “Go” button clicked, the search looks for that word or phrase in all the data associated with each record, across all the item types, throughout the database.

Wildcards

The wildcard (%) can be used in place of unknown characters or to widen the search.

E.g. print% Will retrieve “printer”, “printing”, etc. along with the word “print”

Searches using more than one word

When you are searching for more than one word or wish to exclude specific words from the search you can do so by using ‘+’ against a word to means the word must appear in the items found, and using &lsqu;-’ against a word if you don‘t want the word to appear in the items found. For example:

+_Bradford_ +_City_

All items returned must contain both _Bradford_ and _City_.

_Bradford_ –_City_

All items returned will contain _Bradford_ and must not contain _City_.

Subject Type searches

Each record has one or more subject keywords associated with it. Each subject keyword describes an attribute or property of the image. You can search for these keywords using the Subjects Type search.

The keywords are organized within a hierarchical directory structure of folders and subfolders, each succeeding level becoming more specific. Click on the subject folder
() to display the subjects within the folder.

Click on the subject name to display the item(s) associated with that subject.

Subject Name searches

All the lowest levels of the keywords are shown in alphabetical order, allowing you to pick a subject directly without having to navigate the Subjects hierarchy.

Use the letters on the left to search for subject keywords starting with a particular letter. Once you have found the item of interest click on the link to search.

Advanced Search

If you already know which of the collections or item types within which you would like to search, then you can get a more direct result by using the Advanced Search.

While the General Search text search queries all the data fields in all of the records, the Advanced Search allows you to restrict the search to the contents of any particular field in any particular item type.

Each collection or item type in the database has its own specific Advanced Search page.

To use the advanced Search click on the Advanced Search link and select a collection or item type from the resulting list. It will then display which of the fields you are able to search in for that collection.

Enter the data in one or more of the fields, being as specific as possible in order to generate a meaningful set of results.

If you enter data into more than one field the search will only return items that contain all of the specified data.

Some fields allow you to enter text freely, others have a pre–selected choice of options that appear on a picklist or dropdown menu. Select from the options displayed the data you wish to search on.

Text Box

In a Text Box field you are free to enter any words or phrases and can use wildcards (%) as described above.

Date Ranges

Use the two date fields to create a ‘date range’ in which to search.

Entering a From date will return everything from that year and after.

Entering a To date will return everything from that year and before.

Entering a date in to the From field to search from and a date into the To date to search to will create a ‘date range’, any items that fall within this range will be returned.

To search for a single specific date enter it into both the From date and To date fields.

Use the Reset button to reset the fields back to their default settings.

Show All

Selecting the Show All link will conduct a search that will return every item in the database across all items types.

Selections Page

Beside each thumbnail image, and under each reference image, is a checkbox. Clicking in this box shows a tick and changes the status of the item to ‘Selected’. The item will be automatically placed into the ‘Selections’ page and can be viewed at any time using the Selections link on the navigation bar.

To remove the item from the selections simply click the checkbox to remove the tick. Once the page is refreshed the item will no longer appear in the selections.

Using the Clear All Selections link will remove the tick from all the selected items.

Collections

The Collections page allows you to view items that have been collated as a collection of images. A collection is represented by a thumbnail image and a title.

To view a collection, click on the thumbnail to link to an item page detailing that collection. To view a gallery containing all the items that constitute that collection, click on the View button on the Related Items pane.

A sample of these collections can be found on the home page.

Previous Searches

The ‘Previous Searches’ page records a history of all the searches you have performed, in a chronological list. To view the results of a search simply click on the link.

This function is session based; closing the Browser will clear the ‘Previous Search’ history.

Search Results

Gallery

Results of searches are returned in the form of a gallery of thumbnail images. By default the gallery consists of eight thumbnails. This however can be changed by entering the desired number into the Display Items field and refreshing the page.

Navigation between gallery pages is done by either using the Previous and Next arrow buttons or by entering the required page number in the page number field and hitting return.

The gallery page includes a ‘crumb trail’, this displays the type of search used to generate the current gallery.

To add an item to the selections gallery click on the checkbox and a red tick will appear. Clicking it again will to remove it from the selection.

To view an item in more detail, simply click on the corresponding thumbnail to access the Item Record page.

Item Record Page

The ‘Item Record’ page displays the referenced size image and the corresponding data. It is possible to select the image (see above) from this page, as well as a viewing a higher resolution Larger Image, and enables the page to be emailed as a link.

The ‘Item Record’ page includes a ‘crumb trail’, this displays the type of search used to generate the current set of results and allows you to link back to the gallery containing the current item.

Navigation between Item Record pages is done by either using the Previous and Next arrow buttons or by entering the required page number in the page number field and pressing return.

Any related items or Subjects that the item appears under are also displayed.

An example of a relationship could be that a photograph is related to the book it is taken from and a book is related to a photograph it contains.

If the item belongs to any collections or subjects these are also displayed along with the nature of the relationship. To view any related items or collections simply click on the View link on the appropriate pane. To view any subjects that the item appears in click the named link on the subjects pane.

Larger Image Page

The ‘Larger Image’ page displays a larger, high resolution copy of the current item. It includes a ‘crumb trail’, which displays the type of search used to generate the current set of results. It also allows you to link back to the gallery containing the current item, or back to the ‘Item Reference’ page for the current item.

Navigation between Larger Image pages is done by either using the Previous and Next arrow buttons or by entering the required page number in the page number field and hitting return.