| |
What? Where?
Electronic databases for research into Shakespeare and other early modern
literature offer a bewildering range of advanced searching features. My paper
for the 2005 meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America explored these
features and complained that each product implements standard practice in a
different way. Arising from that exploration, here's a 'cheat sheet' summarizing
how to do common advanced searching procedures in each of the 7 products.
| Product |
Automagic |
Field bundling |
Truncation |
Wildcarding |
Boolean |
Proximity |
Comments |
| WSB |
gabriel egan hits also egan,
gabriel but don't use middle initial |
keywords = author, title,
publisher, notes, reviews, and people |
* represents zero or more chars |
Not implemented |
and, or, not |
Not implemented |
|
| ESTC online |
i/j and u/v.
also auto-truncation in fields author, title, imprint, and subject |
keyword = author word,
title word, subject word, and imprint word |
? represents zero or more
chars |
Not implemented |
and, or, not |
Not implemented |
There's a 'command line'
search that's too tricky for me to understand |
| ESTC CD-ROM |
None |
keyword = an
unspecified collection of fields |
* represents zero or more
chars |
? represents one char |
and, or, andnot |
near, nearx (default 10
and directionless)
with, withx (default 10 and in specified order)
|
Truncation and wildcarding
seem to work only in the keyword pseudo-field |
| EEBO |
None |
keywords = all
searchable fields |
* represents zero or more
chars |
? represents zero or one char |
and, or, not |
near, near.x (default
10 and directionless)
fby, fby.x (default 10 and in specified order)
|
|
| EAS |
None |
keyword = an
unspecified collection of fields |
Same as for wildcarding |
? represents one char
* zero or more chars
|
and, or, andnot |
within x words of
(forwards or backwards)
within x words before and within x words
after (providing directionality).
|
[ ] lists alternatives,
so c[aou]p will find cap, cop, or cup |
| LION |
None |
None |
* represents zero or more
chars |
? represents zero or
one char |
and, or, not |
near, near.x (default
10 and directionless)
fby fby.x (default 10 and in specified order)
|
|
| OED |
None |
None |
Same as for wildcarding |
? represents one char
* represents zero or more chars
|
and, or, not selected
from drop-down list |
near, not near, before,
after, before or after and distance selected from drop-down list |
|
Legend
WSB The World Shakespeare Bibliography
ESTC online English Short Title Catalogue provided via the Research
Libraries Group (RLG) Eureka interface
ESTC CD-ROM English Short Title Catalogue 1473-1800 on CD-ROM, 3rd
edition
EEBO Early English Books Online
EAS Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare
LION Literature Online
OED Oxford English Dictionary CD-ROM Second Edition (version 3)
Automagic special tricks the search engine does without being asked
Field bundling provision of a single pseudo-field that can be searched
instead of specifying a whole collection of fields linked by OR
Truncation wildcarding allowed in the terminal position only (so wom*
hits woman, women, and womb)
Wildcarding wildcarding allowed in the medial or terminal positions (so
w*m hits women, whom, whilom)
Boolean linking search criteria with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
Proximity specifying that two hits must occur with a given textual
distance (so many words) of one another
char means an alphanumeric character (a-z, 0-9, and punctuation)
Please report errors in this table to me, Gabriel Egan ( mail@GabrielEgan.com
)
|
Gabriel
Egan . com