Search help
<>Simple Searching - The Movie QuickTime MovieSelect the the above link to view a QuickTime movie (400kb) showing the stages of a simple search. You will need the QuickTime plug-in to view this. It is available free from http://www.apple.com/quicktime.
<>OverviewThe searching facilities allow you to use simple word searches, of fields in the catalogue, via four different query screens. The Simple Search links to just three fields, Creator (e.g. artists, designers, makers and manufacturers), Object Name (e.g. print, sampler) and Title e.g. "The Ancient of Days". The Who, What Search links to a mix of fields arranged in a simple Who, What, Where, When, How format. So, creator names, ethnic peoples and artistic school can be searched through the Who query, material and title through the What query, places through the Where query, dates through the When query, technique through the How query.
The Advanced Search allows you to match your search query to individual fields in our catalogue so, for instance, you can search the title field only. You can also search multiple fields e.g. by placing Russia in the Creation Place field and lace in the Technique field, you can search for Russian lace.
We divide the collection into groups. These can be searched in the Advanced Search option. Within Fine Art there are drawings, paintings and sculpture, divided into historic and modern, and prints. We also have large collections of textiles, subdivided by technique e.g. printed and woven, and wallpapers.
The Exhibitions Search allows you to search recent exhibitions held at the Whitworth. See below.
For a search on objects, the default result is a list view with thumbnails (small images), if available. You can change the view to a thumbnail view. From these views you can retrieve further details on individual objects by selecting the accession number or caption, which act as hyperlinks. A larger image is published in the Object display page You can select the image to display a new window, with the image only. Use the back button in your browser to return to the Object display page. There are sometimes a number of images available to view. From the creator's name, a further link takes you to information on the creator. However, the data at this level is often very limited. There are links to all related narratives at the bottom of the Object display page (see Narrative Search below).
<>Exhibitions SearchThe Exhibitions Search allows you to search recent exhibitions held at the Whitworth.
You can search by Title and Description (for example, the subtitle which often acts as an alternative title); Type, linking to categories including collections exhibitions held at the Whitworth (which predominently feature our collections), collection displays (which are more general displays featuring our collections), and exhibitions (which may be loan exhibitions); Date, a simple search by the year in which the exhibition was held.
For a search on exhibitions, the default result is a list view with thumbnails (small images), if available. You can change the view to a thumbnail view. From these views you can retrieve further details on individual exhibitions by selecting the title, which acts as a hyperlink. The letter O indicates whether there is further information available on individual objects in the Collections Catalogue.
From the Exhibition Display you can, in many cases, view a description, text panel/s as well as venues and dates. A link appears to a list of objects that were in the exhibition (if they are recorded in the Collections Catalogue). Short-term loans will not generally appear.
Selecting an object will take you to the Exhibition Object Display view which will contain the label or caption information when available. There is also a link the Standard Object Display which provides more information on the object and where available, links to other exhibitions in which the object was displayed.
<>What you can findExhibitions from 1958
Generally, all exhibitions held at the Whitworth from 1958 are published. Loan exhibitions usually only have details of venues and dates at present. We plan to add descriptions. Works on loan are not generally published with the exception of current short-term loans.
Collection Exhibitions from 1990
These are drawn mostly from our collections and will usually contain descriptions, text panels and labels for individual objects. Displays from the collection are not generally published as they change frequently.
Images
Images of objects are published where available. A photography programme is in place to add more images.
Completeness
Some exhibitions may not be published as they need to be edited first. Generally all exhibitions from 1958 are published. Some objects are difficult to identify so may be omitted, or include a number of possible matches.
<>Narrative SearchThe new Narrative Search provides a way of searching narrative
information. Narratives are stories about people, places and events in
the Collections Catalogue. They include collection themes, the history
of the Gallery and collections, technical terms, biographies,
exhibition text panels and labels. They are usually linked both ways to
records of objects, people and organisations, events and images so, for
example you can find all related narratives in the Object display page.
Approximately 4000 narratives are available including 2000 object
labels, 550 biographies of watercolour artists and 350 biographies and
histories of textile designers, makers and manufacturers.
Linked to the Narrative Search is an IRN search. If you know the
internal record number of the narrative you can enter this to give you
the matching narrative.
- You can use a number of words in your search. There is an automatic and which means all the words are searched.
- You can use all lower case e.g. turner and Turner are treated alike.
- To match an exact phrase use quote marks e.g. "The Whitworth Tapestry" will find just the object with that title.
- You may want to try a general query first and then refine it e.g. searching for Freud rather than Lucian Freud will avoid confusion over the spelling of his first name.
- You can use the wild character * if you are unsure of the spelling e.g. Luc* Day will find Lucienne Day. Please bear in mind that this will slow the search.
- A simple search might produce unwanted results e.g. searching for Lewis Day will find objects designed by Lewis F Day but also objects designed by Lucienne Day, manufactured by John Lewis.
- If you have too many results you can search further e.g. you could use the Advanced Search option to find only drawings by Paul Nash rather than include prints and textiles.
- You can exclude words by using ! e.g. !sculpture will exclude sculpture from your search. However, you can't mix a desired word and an unwanted word in the same field.
- Not all objects have dates. Use the earliest and latest date fields to search for date ranges e.g. earliest date 1960, latest date 1969 will find all objects created in the 1960s.
- When searching for exhibitions, try matching just one word rather than the whole title. Alternatively, search for a year date then browse the results.
- Date range searching may be done in the Exhibitions Search e.g. >1989<2000 will find all exhibitions held in the 1990s.
The Collections Catalogue uses PHP to provide an interface to KE EMu, our internal collections information system. KE Software produce EMu (Electronic Museum). The system runs on a server/client basis. The server, administered by The University of Manchester, runs Debian Linux and the clients run Windows. We also access KE EMu via Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection. The PHP interface to Emu links directly to the database, so as changes are made these are available via the PHP interface.
Images held in KE EMu's multimedia repository may be published in the Collections Catalogue. The black and white images were scanned at 72 dpi with a maximum height or width of 480 or 600 pixels. The colour images were scanned from either 35mm or 5"x4" transparencies, and saved at 72dpi with a maximum height or width of 450 or 600 pixels. The new standard images are in digital form, based on c50mb TIFFs. From these publication quality digital images are available. Please refer to the Photography/Reproduction page in About Us/Services.
<>Credits We are grateful to MLA for funding much of the work on cataloguing and publishing the collection through the Designation Challenge Fund. The Collections Catalogue pages have been developed by the Whitworth Art Gallery and KE Software, with assistance from other staff in The University of Manchester. The design has been customised from KE's standard interface.