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Help

JISC Historic Books uses meaning-based searching rather than traditional keyword searching, which is why you will notice you get different results to searching EEBO and ECCO on the publishers sites. Meaning-based searching enables you to find conceptual and contexual links betweeen related documents which aren't possible using traditional keyword searching.

If you would like any further help please do contact the JISC Historic Books helpdesk at: historicbooks@mimas.ac.uk where we will be happy to assist you.

Standard Search

Advanced Search

Results

Refine Your Results

Downloading

Stable URLs (OpenURLs)

Personalisation

Standard search

To run a search, enter between 1 and 30 search terms and select the ‘Search’ button. We recommend that you use more than 1 search term as this will enable the meaning-based searching to produce the most conceptually relevant and meaningful results.

If you want to search for a particular book you can just enter the author or title into the search box and click 'search'. In the default ‘book’ view the title and author fields are biased so if the search terms you enter match a title or author then these book results will be shown first (depicted by a book thumbnail).

After matches on the title and author field have been listed you will see matches on the rest of the metadata fields and full text, shown as page results (depicted by a page thumbnail).

Please note, you can use the boolean and proximity operators, and the wildcard characters below in the search box.

If you would like to do a search within a particular book simply open the book in the viewer (by clicking on the title hyperlink), enter new search terms in the box on the left hand side of the viewer and click the 'go' button. Pages matching your search terms will be listed below the box so you can jump straight to particular results.

exact phrase

Stemming

Stemming is a method of reducing words to their root form. For example: the words cats and catty both stem from the root word cat. The words fishing, fished and fishes all stem from the root word fish. With advanced search engines (including JISC Historic Books), the underlying technology applies stemming to queries (searches), which makes the query more conceptual by ignoring the specific inflexion (tense, plurality etc) of the query term/s.

If you don’t want to ignore the inflexion on your search terms then enclose the term in double quotes, for example, a search for “running” will then only match “running” and not “runner”.

Separators

Most characters that are not letters or numbers are not indexed and cannot be searched on, for example, a search on ‘telescope!’ will search on the term ‘telescope’ only. Most non-alphanumeric characters are treated as separators, or ‘whitespace’ though, so a search on “F.B.I” will be interpreted as “F B I”, with a space between each character. The hyphen is not treated as a separator however, as it is used when a term is more than just 2 individual terms.


Stop Words

With advanced search technologies (including JISC Historic Books), there are certain frequently-occurring words which contribute little or no conceptual meaning to the underlying data. These words are called Stop Words, and include words such as and, or and the. Since they contribute little meaning, the search technology can be more efficient by ignoring them.

If you want to search for a specific phrase that includes stop words you can. On the 'with the exact phrase' search on the advanced search page we have enabled stop words to be included and searched on. Please note that due to the sheer number of records that are included in this type of search, this will have an impact on the time it takes for the search to be run, which can be around 30 seconds, so please bear this in mind when using this field.

The full Stop Words list for JISC Historic Books is available: Stop Words (MS Excel, 84 KB).


Wildcard Operators

Two wildcard operators are available:

Please avoid wildcard characters occurring at or before the third position as they may produce too many unrelated matches.


Boolean Operators

Boolean Search is about linking search terms with logical operators (such as AND, OR, and NOT etc). Boolean Search operators allow you to manipulate a query by applying them to words, exact phrases or other Boolean expressions.

Some example Boolean Search expressions are given below. Note: you must specify all Boolean operators using CAPITAL letters.

Binary operator: AND

Ensures that both terms match in every document that returns.

For example: cat AND dog

This query returns only documents that contain both cat and dog.

Unary operator: NOT

Excludes the term that follows NOT from all the returned documents.

For example: cat NOT dog

This query returns only documents that contain cat but not dog.

Note: To use NOT to exclude multiple terms, you must use brackets, otherwise NOT applies only to the term that immediately follows it. To use NOT to exclude a phrase, you must put the phrase in quotation marks and in brackets.

For example:

Doc 1: I went to the city for the New Year

Doc 2: I went to New York City for the New Year

The following query does not match either of the above documents:

city NOT (New York)

The following query matches the first document but not the second:

city NOT ("New York")

Binary operator: OR

One or both terms must appear for the document to return. This option is the default behaviour if you do not specify an explicit operator between two terms.

For example: cat OR dog

This query returns only documents that contain either cat, dog or both terms.

EOR or XOR Binary operator.

Logical exclusive OR. A document must contain only one of the terms for it to return. This operator is rarely used.

For example: cat XOR dog

This query returns only documents that contain either the term cat or the term dog. Documents that contain both cat and dog do not return.

() Bracketed expressions.

JISC Historic Books evaluates brackets left to right. You can nest bracketed expressions. They dictate the precedence and behaviour of combined operator statements.


Proximity Operators

You can use the following proximity operators with words, exact phrases or other Boolean expressions. For NEAR, DNEAR and WNEAR you can add a number to the end to specify the proximity of the terms. If the two specified words are adjacent to each other their proximity is counted as 1, if one word separates them their distance is counted as 2. Stop words are ignored (e.g. and, the). Select the search profile 'pages' instead of 'books' to view individual page results for these searches.

NEAR

Returns only documents where the second term is within X words of the first term, so the terms are X or fewer words apart. If you don't specify a number at the end of NEAR it defaults to 5.

Example: "hung in chains" NEAR3 Bristol

In the example above, documents are returned which contain the phrase "hung in chains" within 3 words of the word Bristol.

DNEAR

Directed NEAR. Returns only documents where the second term is within X words of the first term, in the specified order. If you don't specify a number at the end of DNEAR it defaults to 5.

Example: "poor law" DNEAR4 Scotland.

WNEAR

Weighted NEAR. WNEAR will increase the relevance of documents where the terms are within X words of each other. Correspondingly it will decrease the relevance of documents that do not meet that criteria - but it will not exclude them entirely. If you don't specify a number at the end of WNEAR it defaults to 5.

Example: women WNEAR2 Bristol.

In the example above, WNEAR2 will increase the relevance of documents where the words women and Bristol are within 2 words of each other. Correspondingly it will decrease the relevance of documents that are further apart, however, they will still appear but they will be lower down the results list.

BEFORE

Only returns documents in which the first term precedes the second one.

AFTER

Only returns documents in which the first term appears later than the second one.


Advanced Search

The Advanced Search page is all about giving users more powerful search tools, including advanced search techniques which may require a deeper understanding of the principles involved. The basic idea is that users can construct complex searches (aka ‘queries’) by entering text in a variety of boxes (aka ‘fields’); when the search is executed, the system returns the user to the Results page, with the complex query displayed in long-hand form in the original Search box.

This permits experienced users to further manipulate the query in place, and re-execute that query directly from the Results page.


Find results with specific words

This section of the Advanced Search page allows you to search in many different ways, including finding matches on some, all or none of the terms (words) you type in. Here are some examples for each of the search methods available…

With all the words

Here, the system will look for all the words you enter - although not necessarily in the order you entered them. For example: if you type Ancient Rome then any matches (on pages) must contain both Ancient and Rome. Anything which contains just Ancient or just Rome would not be considered a match, and hence not be returned. Note that matches are always made at the Pages level (ie, not at the Books level); that is to say, a book containing the words Ancient and Rome would only be a match if those two words occurred on the same page within that book. Note also that the system doesn’t rely on you entering the correct case in order to find matches (ie, its behaviour is ‘case insensitive’); however it can apply greater weight (or bias) with init-capped query terms, since these would typically be proper nouns such as names or places .


With the exact phrase

Here, the system will look for a precise match on the phrase (word or words) you enter, ie the order is significant. For example: if you type midsummer night dream then any matches must contain those exact words in the same exact order. Anything which contains only some of those words would not be considered a match, and hence not be returned.

exact phrase

Stop words (words such as and, or, and the etc) are now included if you enter them, however, due to the sheer number of records which will now be searched, this will have an impact on the time it takes for the search to be run, which can be around 30 seconds, so please bear this in mind when using this field.

When using the 'with the exact phrase' search, and including stop words, you will also need to select the 'Show results as pages' option, on the advanced search page, which will take you directly to the page the term matches on:

page results option


With at least one of the words

Here, the system will look for any of the words you enter. For example: if you type raining cats and dogs, then any matches must contain either raining or cats or dogs - or any combination of those words. Note the word and is ignored for the purposes of searching - it is considered a stop word.


Without the words

Here, the system will look for matches which do not contain the word (or words) you enter. For example: if you type war famine revolution, then any matches returned must not have any of these words. Note that stop words are ignored.


Which matches the expression

Here, the system allows you to enter advanced query syntax (or formulae), sometimes known as ‘logical expressions’. These expressions consist of the search term/s, plus various Boolean operators (such as AND, OR, NOT, NOR etc) and/or Proximity operators (such as BEFORE, AFTER, XNEAR etc) which tie those terms together logically. This method of searching is highly advanced, so if you are not familiar with its syntax, or wish to learn more - please see the those help sections.


Stemming

Stemming is a method of reducing words to their root form. For example: the words cats and catty both stem from the root word cat. The words fishing, fished and fishes all stem from the root word fish. With advanced search engines (including JISC Historic Books), the underlying technology applies stemming to queries (searches), which makes the query more conceptual by ignoring the specific inflexion (tense, plurality etc) of the query term/s.

However, there may be occasions (eg, when using Advanced Search) when you wish to disable the use of stemming by the underlying technology. The ‘Stemming’ checkbox therefore gives you the option to disable (or re-enable) stemming for your searches.

Data Source, Date and Sorting Options

In this section, you can choose which collections of books you wish to be included in your search. You can elect to search on a range of dates. You can switch between displaying pages or books. And you can vary how your results are displayed/sorted on screen. See below for more information.


Data source

By default, all 3 collections of books are selected for your search:

You can selectively remove individual collections from your search, but note that at least one collection must be selected when your search is performed (otherwise an error will be displayed).


Publication date

By default, the system searches with no date restrictions. However, selecting the Between option allows you to enter a range of dates to search on, using the From and To fields (in format YYYY). To search on a single year just enter the same date in the From and To fields.


Show results as

By default, the system shows your Advanced Search results as Books. If you prefer, this can be changed so it displays Pages instead. Searching on Books will mean only one result per book is returned, whereas searching on pages could return a number of results per book. Simply select your preferred option.


Result options

By default, the system displays 10 results on each page of your browser, and sorts them in order of Relevance (ie, the closest conceptual matches to your query appear at the top of the list of results). If you prefer, you can change how many results appear on a browser page (variable between and ) - simply select the desired value from the dropdown Display menu. In addition, you can choose to sort your results by a different method, using Date order rather than Relevance. Simply select the desired value from the dropdown Order By menu.

Searching on specific bibliographic fields

In this section, you can search for specific values (and even 2 alternative values) for specific characteristics (sometimes known as ‘meta-data’) of documents. These characteristics include Titles, Authors’ names, ESTC numbers (see below for more information), Country of origin and Imprint (publisher source). Here is some more information on the choices available…


Title

As the name would suggest, you can search for a given title (if you know it), or 2 alternative titles. The system will bring back matches on either value.


Author

As the name would suggest, you can search for a given author’s name (if you know it), or 2 alternative authors. The system will bring back matches on either value.


Bibliographic reference

You can search on the bibliographic reference number e.g. ESTC number. ESTC stands for ‘English Short Title Catalogue’, and is a separate bibliography maintained by the British Library. Every entry has a unique reference number, so this function allows you to search for a given ESTC number (if you know it), or 2 alternative ESTC numbers. The system will bring back matches on either value. You can also enter 'Thomason' to locate these periodicals.

Our developers have been working on optimising the Bib Ref search to cater for the various formats our 3 collections bibliographic references are displayed in.

A search on Wing (2nd ed.) L698 will find the document below:

and a search on STC (2nd ed.) 8338 will find this document:

Whereas wee are giuen to vnderstand, that since our entrie into this kingdome many of our subiects of our realme of Scotland, and some also of England ... doe not obserue our lawes By England and Wales. Sovereign (1603-1625 : James I)

Our system will also find variations on the reference e.g. a search on STC (2nd ed.) 1805 will also find records for STC (2nd ed.) 1805.7 and STC (2nd ed.) 18051.3.


Place of publication

As the name would suggest, you can search for works published in a given city or country of origin (if you know it), or 2 alternatives. The system will bring back matches on either value.


Imprint

Imprint is typically synonymous with a publisher (or sometimes a publisher’s label), ie the publishing source of a particular book. This function allows you to search against a given imprint (if you know it), or 2 alternative imprints. The system will bring back matches on either value.


Editing Complex Search Queries

Using these meta-data fields, it’s easy to create some fairly complex queries - and these can be manipulated further (for confident/advanced users) via the Search box on the Results page. Using the system’s ‘FilterBy’ functionality (described below), and/or Boolean and Proximity Search Operators, users can modify the query syntax directly on the Results page, and re-submit the modified query for even better results.

FilterBy

FilterBy is a means of isolating particular content of interest. It is driven by the user’s Advanced Search queries, specifically those queries involving meta-data fields (eg, Title, Author, Imprint etc). For example: when entering values for (say) the Title field, the system would build a query like this:

((Title A) OR (Title B)):TITLE

This means it’s searching on anything which matches Title A or Title B in the Title field of the data. It’s entirely possible that multiple matches would be returned for this search, but perhaps there’s one particular document of interest to the user. In order to isolate that, they could try adding some values to another field (say, the Imprint field), assuming they knew which values to add. Using this approach, the system would now apply a FilterBy action, building a query like this:

((Title A) OR (Title B)):TITLE FILTERBY({Publisher A|Publisher B}:IMPRINT)

This means the original search still applies, but this time the system is filtering the content for anything which also matches Publisher A or Publisher B in the Imprint field of the data.

Let’s take the above example one stage further: perhaps there is still a large selection of matches, despite the search on the Title values, and the restriction (or filtering) on the Imprint values. If one or more ESTC values were known, the user could enter those for additional FilterBy refinement. In this case, the system would build a query like this:

((Title A) OR (Title B)):TITLE FILTERBY({Publisher A|Publisher B}:IMPRINT AND {a123|b456}:ESTC)

The means the original search still applies, as does the FilterBy on the Imprint values; however, there is a further FilterBy action being applied - this time the system will also match a123 or b456 in the ESTC field of the data.

Using this approach, users can create very powerful and complex queries for their searches. Furthermore, since the long-hand query string is displayed in the Search box on the Results page, this means the user can further modify their query and re-execute from there - another enhancement to the power features of JISC Historic Books.

Results


Full text viewer

The full text for each record can be viewed by selecting the title hyperlink to open the full text viewer.

full text viewer

To see more of the page you can hide the side panel and toolbar at the top of the viewer by selecting the full screen icon full text viewer on the far right of the toolbar. To use the controls on the toolbar while in full screen view just hover your cursor over the top of the screen, or over the icon in the top right of the viewer. You can use the zoom icon while in full screen mode to see the page in more detail.

full text viewer


Navigating texts

To navigate through a text you can type a page number and press 'enter' to go to a particular page image as well as using the forwards and backwards arrows full text viewer full text viewer to go forwards or backwards a page at a time. Use the double arrows full text viewer full text viewer to go to the last page or first page. To return to your original starting page select the 'original page' text link.

page selection options

Please note that the page numbers you type in to the box refer to the digital page image numbers, rather than the physical page numbers in the actual book. These numbers may be different as pages that do not have numbers e.g. at the front of a book are also digitised and, for example for EEBO, two pages have been scanned at a time.

You can also use the arrows at either side of the viewer to navigate forwards and backwards a page at a time, as well as the 'next result' arrows at each side to go to the next search result within the current text.

You can also use the forwards and backwards arrows full text viewer full text viewer around the text 'Book x of xxx' to go to the next or previous book from the results list.


Viewing plain text

For works with plain text (all of the BL and ECCO collections and around 25% of the EEBO collection) you can view this by selecting the 'text' link on the viewer toolbar .

full text viewer


Comparing results in different tabs

Although it is not possible to right click a search result and open it in a separate tab, if you want to compare results in different tabs you can open JISC Historic Books in multiple tabs and run your searches independantly.


Which results have plain text available?

Under each search result there is a 'plain text' link which enables you to go directly to the plain text for that work. This link will be greyed out for any records that do not have plain text available.

All titles in the BL and ECCO collections have plain text available, this has been created by digital scanning technology called Optical Character Recogntion (OCR).

Around 25% of the EEBO collection have plain text available, this has been created by manual keying which has been done by the Text Creation Partnership. Their work is still ongoing and further plain text records for the EEBO collection will be added to JISC Historic Books as they are made available to us.


Refine Your Results


Concept Cloud

The concept cloud is a meaning based breakdown of the results, providing a list of conceptual suggestions to refine your query by. The concepts are extracted on-the-fly each time a search is run, typically by sampling the first 30-100 pages of the results set.

These concepts are names and phrases which are considered to be particularly relevant to the documents in which they reside, with the more prominent concepts appearing in a larger, bolder type.

Click on any of the concepts to refine your search by that term. To remove the selected refinement click on the concept term in the ‘Refine By’ blue bar at the top of the screen.

concept cloud


Downloading


Downloading individual pages, a range of pages and whole texts

You can save and print individual pages, a range of pages or whole books as PDFs by using the download button in the viewer . You can choose to download the page image or just the plain text (Text Only) and you can also download citations in RIS, RefWorks or BibTex format from the same menu.

download menu

When you select 'Page Image' or 'Text Only' you will see a dialogue box prompting you for an email address and options to download the current page, a range of pages or a whole text. Select the radio button for the option you require, by default 'current page' will be selected.

The request will go into a queue, once the file has been generated by our system you will be sent an email notification with a link to download the text. This saves you waiting for the text to be processed as particularly large documents may take several hours.

Page image downloads also include optical character recognition (OCR), which means they are searchable, so you can search the images offline.

download menu


Why can't books be downloaded instantly?

This is because PDF downloads are created on-the-fly when a researcher requests a specific range of pages or whole book.

When a page, range of pages or whole book is requested using the download button in the full text viewer, the request goes into a queue. The system locates all the individual pages and generates searchable PDFs for each one using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, then merges them into one PDF file. Once the file has been generated an email notification is sent to the researcher with a link to download the PDF.

We appreciate that researchers want instant downloads, however, so we are investigating long term caching and pre-processing options to see how we can provide this type of service in future.

For reference, the diagram below shows how the PDF download process works.


screenshot of downloading page images or text screenshot of download dialogue box screenshot of PDF server workflow screenshot of email notification messagescreenshot of searchable PDF


Print individual pages

You can print an individual page directly using your browser by clicking on the page image to reveal a dialogue box with a URL. Simply copy and paste the URL into another browser tab or window and use your browsers print option to print the page directly.

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Stable URLs (OpenURLs) for books, pages as well as author and title searches

We provide stable URLs for books, including individual page images, as well as for author or title searches. This gives you a URL which you can copy and paste into web pages or documents, enabling you to link directly back to either a specific page image of a book in the viewer or to the results of a search on an author or title.

When you click on the stable URL from another website or document you will be prompted to login (unless you are already logged in). For a book or specific page image URL, you will be taken directly to the a page in the viewer. For author or title searches, you will be taken to the results page for the particular search. Our stable URLs are OpenURL compliant and the terminology 'OpenURL' is used for them in JISC Historic Books.


Stable URLs (OpenURLs) for books and pages

To get an OpenURL link for a book, or a particular page in a book, simply search for your desired book as usual using either the standard or Advanced Search then click on the hyperlink title to open it up in the viewer. For a link to the whole book you can use the first page image, for a link to a specific page just navigate to the page required, then click on the globe icon on the viewer toolbar.

download menu

This will give you the OpenURL link for that page. Simply copy and paste this link into your web page or document. The screenshot below shows the link for page image 55 of this particular book.

download menu

Please note, this feature uses the bibiographic reference number to link to the correct book. So, for books that share this number, e.g. ones that have multiple volumes, the OpenURL link for a specific page image will just link back to the results list showing all volumes.

Stable URLs (OpenURLs) for author and title searches

We also provide OpenURLs for the results of author and title searches for you to copy and paste into web pages or documents, enabling you to link directly back to the results page for the search.

Simply run your search using either the title or author fields on the Advanced Search page and select the 'Open URL' link at the top of the results page.

download menu

When you click on the 'Open URL' link this will display a URL for you to copy and paste into your web page or document.

download menu

Please note, OpenURLs for searches are only available when you run a title or author search from the Advanced Search page (or a bibliographic reference number (bib ref) search on EEBO or ECCO as this is part of the OpenURL for books and pages), so you won't see an 'Open URL' link at the top of the results screen if you use any other fields on the Advanced Search page, or if you use the standard search box on the homepage.


Personalisation

If you have logged in with Shibboleth or OpenAthens then any changes you make to the personalisation settings below will be saved for you permanently. If you are accessing JISC Historic Books via ip authentication please note these changes will only be saved for your current session.


Save Search

You can save your current search by selecting the ‘Save Search’ hyperlink at the top right hand corner of the screen. Enter a name for the search (max 50 characters) and an optional description (max 250 characters), then click the ‘Save’ button.

If you are logged in with Shibboleth or OpenAthens then this search will be saved for you permanently however if you are accessing JISC Historic Books via ip authentication please note this search will only be saved for your current session.


My Searches

To view your previously saved searches select the ‘My Searches’ hyperlink at the top right hand corner of the screen.

To view the search criteria select the orange arrow next to the search title, to hide the criteria select the orange arrow again.

To run the search simply click on the search title, to modify or delete the search use the ‘Edit’ and ‘Delete’ buttons.


My Bibliography

Select the checkbox to the right of each search result to add records to a marked list. When you select a record a grey bar at the top of the results list will be displayed with options to save, export or email the selected record(s).

If you choose to save the record then it will be saved to your 'My Bibliography' area. To access it at a later date select the 'My Bibliography' link at the top of the screen. You can save up to 50 records in 'My Bibliography' and you can email or export them individually or all together. Click on the record title to go straight to the full text in the viewer.

Only whole works can be added to the marked list, not individual pages, so the checkbox will not appear next to page results.

My Bibliography:

Screenshot of My Bibliography

PLEASE NOTE: saving records to 'My Bibliography' is only available when accessing JISC Historic Books using an institutional login account (Shibboleth/OpenAthens) as the records are saved to your individual account.

If you are accessing via ip authentication (i.e. you don't enter a username/password) then you will not see the option to 'save' on the grey marked list bar, and there will not be a 'My Bibliography' link at the top of the screen. With ip authentication there is no way to identify your individual session so we are unable to save records for you to access again later.

My Preferences

You can customise your view for JISC Historic Books by selecting the My Preferences link at the top of the screen. These settings will take effect the next time you run a new search or after you refresh your browser screen by pressing F5.

User Interface Preferences tab

Default Search Options tab