Tips For Using The Electronic Catalogue at Northumberland Collections Service

1.    Go to the homepage of our website –
    www.northumberland.gov.uk/collections   

2.    Locate the link to the electronic catalogue on the right hand side of the page.

3.    Click on the SEARCH THE CATALOGUE BUTTON.

4.    USE THE QUICK CATALOGUE SEARCH FUNCTION – the Advanced Search function is not yet fully operational. The QUICK CATALOGUE SEARCH is the first page that you are presented with.

5.    If looking for records within the Society’s collection only (i.e. you do not wish to undertake a search across the collections) you should type the ‘collection level’ reference in the QUICK CATALOGUE SEARCH BOX – type in SANT.

6.    You should then add in a word or words upon which you wish the search to be undertaken. For example:

    SANT NEWCASTLE BRIDGE

    The catalogue will only allow you to view 5000 records at one time. This means that if you are searching for records relating to a larger collection or searching on a popular noun you may need to define your search further- hence my example.

7.    When searching for nouns it may be useful to use the singular e.g. BRIDGE rather than BRIDGES.

8.    You may fund it useful to consider using a wildcard search. As an example, if you are looking for records relating to dancing you might type danc* into the QUICK CATALOGUE SEARCH BOX. This will bring all references to words commencing with danc i.e. dance, dancer, dancers, dancing.

9.    You will then be presented with a summary of the records that fit the search criteria you have submitted – RefNo, Title & Date. Each full page includes details of 25 records. If therefore the search results inform you that there are 10 pages you know that there are in the region of 250 records fulfilling your search criteria.

10.    If whilst browsing through the results list you notice a record of particular interest you should click on FULL RECORD to see the full catalogue entry. This will take you to the RECORD VIEW page. This may or may not include further information about that item.

11.    If you feel that you would like to view this item at Woodhorn or order a copy of the item you should quote the RefNo.

12.    If you would like to see the full catalogue list for the collection that the item you have identified forms a part of you should click on the RefNo in the RECORD VIEW page. 

13.    This is problematic for the SANT catalogue, because of its size. It currently  65119 records and is therefore not viewable as an entity. The way round this is to make a note of the first part of the reference, e.g. SANT/PHO/ALB/11 and return to the QUICK CATALOGUE SEARCH and enter this in the search box. This search will bring up details of all records that form part of this part of the collection.

14.    Some records have thumbnails of images attached. These are first viewable in the RESULTS LIST. To view the image in more detail click on FULL RECORD to see the full catalogue entry. Then click on the image itself. This will allow you to view a larger copy of the image. You can increase/decrease the screen size of the image by using the ZOOM IN/ZOOM OUT buttons at the top of the screen. The on-screen images are all low resolution so will suffer pixilation as you increase the dimensions on screen. 


Sue Wood,
Northumberland Collections Service