About the Archives Hub Search

Discover

Search: The Search page is simple to use, yet allows advanced users to build complex queries with multiple terms in multiple indexes. Boolean search logic, phrase searching, and wildcards are all supported, as is highlighting of your search term in record displays wherever possible.
Filter: Refine your search using a number of attributes that occur within the results. This feature is commonly referred to as facetted searching.
Browse: Indexes of titles, subject, names, reference numbers etc. can be browsed alphabetically from the Browse Indexes page.
Find subjects: The system also provides a way to discover relevant subjects within controlled vocabularies based on free text that you enter (known as an ELV). This is available on the Find Subjects page.
For full details on the search features and how to use them, please see the Help page.

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As well as a human useable web-interface for searching, it also exposes the database via web-service APIs. Web-service APIs are what makes a number of Web 2.0 applications possible, and indeed this is how the Archives Hub is able to search and deliver data from distributed contributing institutions.

The Archives Hub currently provides the following APIs:

Webservice / Protocol	Link to Standard's Homepage	Location of web-service API
SRU	Search/Retrieval via URL	http:///api/sru/hub
OAI-PMH	The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting	http:///api/OAI/2.0/hub
Z39.50	Z39.50 International Standard Maintenance Agency	z3950://:210/hub

Create and Edit

In 2009 we added an EAD Editor. Based loosely on the Archives Hub data creation template, the editor allows you to create archival description from scratch without worrying about schemas or DTDs. The biggest change from the old template is the ability to build up multiple levels of description without needing to copy and paste into a text editor. The system will even save your work allowing you to create entries over a number of days or even weeks. You can preview your description as it will appear when displayed to users in the Archives Hub, or look at the native EAD XML, at any time. Once you're finished editing you can export your record to a file, and (optionally) email them directly to the Archives Hub data manager.

It's also possible to load an existing files into the Editor for additional cataloguing. This makes minor corrections, for things such as spelling mistakes, missing, or incorrect controlled access terms a quick and simple task. Again, once your edits are complete you can export them to a file and (optionally) email the corrected version to the Archives Hub data manager.

Software

The search features of the Archives Hub are provided by Cheshire3. Cheshire3 is a fast, feature rich and highly customizable XML search engine, written in Python. Both Cheshire3 and the Archives Hub search software were developed at the University of Liverpool. The support of the JISC is gratefully acknowledged. For more information, see the Cheshire3 website.