Searching the APRL Card Catalogue Online

It's easy to find the information you want!
  1. Type query criteria in one or more boxes.

    2. If you type criteria in more than one box, documents must meet all specified criteria.
    Example: Find documents that contain the word "Perfins" AND have an author of "Jones"
  2. Click Submit Query.
  3. Records that meet your criteria are displayed as a report.
  4. To go back to the search screen, use the browser's Back button or select a URL from the browser's Address list.

Finding words and phrases

Type the word you want to find (Errors) or type a phrase (Forgeries and Counterfeits) to find those words, in that order. To find variations based on word stems, type an asterisk at the end of one or more words (Perfi* Essa*). We don't recommend truncating words such as Post, Stamp, United, Philatelic or Collect.  These are very common in our database and will result in a large retrieval.
Use the symbols & / ! between words or phrases to represent Boolean AND, OR, NOT. Include a space before and after the symbol.
Type this… To find…
United States those words, in that order
States / United either word (or both)
France & Errors only documents that contain both words (documents that contain just one of the words will be ignored)
Postal Markings ! Metered  Mail “Postal Markings” but not “Metered Mail” 
Perf*  any word in the field that begins perf, i.e. Perfins, Perforations, particularly good when you are not sure whether a word should be plural or singular (perfin vs perfins)
In the case of the Boolean operators (& / !)  There should be a space between the words and the operator, i.e.
France & Errors...
In the case of Truncation (*) There should not be any spaces between the last letter typed and the star (Perfi*)
NOTE: Words joined by & / ! are evaluated in left-to-right order: red & white / blue finds items that are red and white, or items that are blue. Use parentheses to control evaluation order: red & (white / blue) finds items that are red and white or red and blue.

 

Finding a term (exact, complete match)

A term is a complete item, with no additional text before or after. To search for a term, precede it with an equal sign (=). For example, =john smith finds only that complete term (does not find just "john” or just "smith" or that phrase embedded in other text).   Since we use a large quantity of subject headings, we don't recommend this type of search in the subject field.  If you would type =United States, the only records you would retrieve are those which have United States in the subject field, and no other subjects.

Case and Punctuation

Case is always ignored (a search for joe smith finds Joe Smith). Punctuation is also ignored, except for the and-or-not symbols (& / !) and the colon for range searches ( : ). If you want these characters to be interpreted literally, use quotation marks ("Bridger & Kay") or replace the punctuation with a space (Bridger Kay).

Reset Button

To clear query criteria from the form, click the Reset button at the bottom of the page.

Submit Query Button

To start your search, click the Submit Query button at the bottom of the page.

Displaying Records After a Search

A successful search finds one or more records, which are displayed in your Web browser as a report. Use the browser controls as you normally would to view and print HTML pages. Use the procedures described below to perform special operations.