4.1. Basic Guide for Conducting Searches
The following rules apply to all of the searches on the site.
4.1.1. Exact matches
Use quotation marks to tell Search that you are looking for a specific phrase and word order. For example:
bowler hat
will return any results in which both the term "bowler" and the term "hat" appear. A search for these terms within quotes,
"bowler hat"
will return only results that have the exact phrase "bowler hat".
4.1.2. Boolean operators
Search supports the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT.
AND
Unless you tell it otherwise, Search assumes that you only want results in which ALL of your search terms appear. This means that there is an implicit "AND" between all your search terms. So entering:
silk gown
will return the same results as if you had entered:
silk AND gown
OR
You can use the OR operator to tell Search to return results in which either search term exists. For instance, if you enter:
jacket OR blazer
your results will include any article in which either "jacket" or "blazer" exists.
NOT
The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. For example,
hat NOT fedora
will return all results for "hat" which do not include the term "fedora".
Nesting commands
Boolean commands can be nested for more complex searches. Parentheses tell Search which expressions to evaluate first, before combining with other Boolean operators. For example:
(panama OR fedora) NEAR "california"
4.1.3. Wildcards
You can use the * and ? wildcards in most non-numeric search fields. The question mark or ? character represents any single character.
For example cha?el will return results for Chanel and chapel.
The asterisk or * character represents any number of characters.
Entering bead* will return results for beads, beaded and beadwork.
4.1.4. Special characters
The site permits searching with or without diacritical marks. Thus, a search for
cristobal
will return results that match the name Cristóbal, as will a search for:
cristóbal
4.1.5. Case sensitivity and punctuation
Search in the Berg Fashion Library is not case sensitive.
Punctuation characters are not treated as significant, so the two terms:
short lived
short-lived
will both return a content item containing the text "Although the movement was short lived, it exposed entrenched gender stereotypes"
4.1.6. "Stop" words
By default, Search ignores certain common words in English. The stop words we use on the site are: a, an, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will, with.
Therefore a search entered as
dress and fashion in new zealand
will seek out the works "dress" and "fashion" and "new" and "zealand", and ignore the words "and" and "in".
To conduct an efficient search for a specific phrase containing stop words, enter your words surrounded by quotation marks:
"dress and fashion in new zealand"
