A keyword search is a search for a word, words or phrase in the title or description of a record item, series, agency or depositor (for example, Barton, Cyclone Tracy or Snowy Mountains Scheme). Keyword searches are the quickest and easiest way to search for records on a particular subject, person, place or event.

Item titles, and descriptive information about series, agencies, persons and organisations can all be searched. To select the type of information to be searched, use the drop-down 'Search' menu to select 'All until a match is found' (the default), 'Items', 'Series', 'Agencies Persons Organisations', or 'All', before clicking the 'Search' button.

Plurals, synonyms and related terms are only retrieved automatically if the thesaurus is switched on. If it is switched off, only the exact keywords entered are searched. For more information about using the thesaurus see Fact Sheet 17 – Using preferences and the thesaurus in RecordSearch.

Tips on how to search for plurals, synonyms and related terms manually (ie with the thesaurus switched off) are given below.

Wildcard searches

• find variations of a keyword by entering the common stem of the word followed by an asterisk (eg Malay* will find Malay, Malaya, Malayan, Malaysia and Malaysian)
• find alternative spellings in one search by entering the alternative spellings eg naturalisation and naturalization, and select the search option Any Words (see overleaf)

Acronyms

• to find an acronym enter the string with and without fullstops eg CSIRO and C.S.I.R.O. and select the search option Any Words (see below)

Punctuation

• do not use punctuation or symbols such as + = # ? ( ) [ ] or %
• Full stops, apostrophes and slashes can be used eg C.S.I.R.O., O'Brien or 11/44 Infantry Battalion

Hyphens

• omit hyphens, eg use post war not post-war, Governor General not Governor-General

Case

• use full uppercase or full lowercase, or in any combination – the result is the same

Searching for All words, Any words or Phrases

If using two or more keywords be sure to select the correct search option ('All words', 'Any words' or 'Phrase') from the drop-down menu. For example, for the keywords civil defence:

• 'All words' (the default setting) will only find records that include both civil and defence, though they may be separated by other words.
• 'Any words' will find records that include either civil or defence or both, including records where they are separated by other words.
• 'Phrase' will only find records that include both civil and defence in that exact order, with no other words between.

Keyword order

• Keyword order is only important in Phrase searches. An All words search entered as malaria Queensland (ie a search for records containing both these words) will find the same number of items regardless of the order of the words.
• In a Phrase search on proper names such as Alice Springs or Joint Intelligence Bureau the words must be entered in the exact order that they appear in the name.

RecordSearch will only retrieve plurals, synonyms and related terms automatically if the thesaurus is switched on (see above). If the thesaurus is switched off, these terms can still be retrieved (though less reliably) by using the following methods.

Singular/plural forms

• Enter the singular and plural forms (eg internee internees) as an Any word search.
• Enter the stem followed by an asterisk (eg internee*). Note that for some keyword stems, records unrelated to the keyword will be retrieved.

Synonyms and related terms

• Enter all possible synonyms and related terms (eg Antarctic and Antarctica; nuclear and atomic; Sino, Chinese and China; conscription and national service).
• Remember that spelling and usage changes (eg Soeharto vs Suharto; Roumania vs Romania; Freemantle vs Fremantle; communist vs communistic).
• Remember that names of countries and territories change (eg the Australian Capital Territory was formerly the Federal Capital Territory; Argentina was known as The Argentine; Indonesia was formerly the Netherlands East Indies and East Indies).

Read the 'Help' text and 'Tips on searching' available in RecordSearch. Read the following fact sheets:

• Fact Sheet 13 – RecordSearch – an overview
• Fact Sheet 15 – Reference number searching in RecordSearch
• Fact Sheet 16 – Advanced searching in RecordSearch
• Fact Sheet 17 – Using preferences and the thesaurus in RecordSearch
• Fact Sheet 18 – Finding people's names in RecordSearch

Comments or other feedback can be sent to archives@naa.gov.au

updated June 2003