Search Help Notes

Back to Search Form

Getting Started

To search, choose a search field from the options in the drop down menu and enter the required search text. Upper or lower case letters can be used. You can search on up to four variables within the same search text box provided they both fall within the selected search field. Set the 'Interpret search text as' buttons to interpret the search text entered accordingly.

Examples

The search text can also be interpreted as 'Near'. This retrieves entries containing the search terms when the terms appear directly adjacent to each other, ignoring punctuation and stop words ('a', 'an', 'the', etc.).

To search on two or more different search fields, you can use the 'all text' search and/or enter text in both search field/search text boxes. While the text within each box can be interpreted as 'And', 'Or' or 'Near', the relationship between the text in the two boxes is always interpreted as 'And'.

Examples

Search Results

Successful searches lead to a 'Search Results' listing of the key information associated with the items found. Clicking on each individual result leads to the 'Item Display', the full catalogue entry for the item in question.

The Item Display indicates the divisions and subdivisions of the Collection's arrangement within which the item displayed is found. The divisions and subdivisions can be browsed from this screen.

The Item Display also contains links, as appropriate, to entries in the Name Authority File and Placename Authority File. Links to Related Items are also displayed.

Search Tips

• It is not possible to use the Boolean operator 'Not' between terms within the same search text box or between the two search text boxes.

• Searching using wildcards is supported. An asterisk ('*') stands for zero or more characters and a question mark ('?') stands for zero or one characters.

Search Field

You can search on 'all text' or specific types of information:

• Title
• All names
• Contributors' names
• Place
• Date
• Genre
• Page number
• Child ballad number or title

Title The title(s) given to an item in the Collection, such as a song or story. In the case of more discursive items which lack a title, such as notes and letters, a descriptive title has been supplied or the first few words of the item have been given as an incipit. In these cases it may be more effective to search by genre. The title search searches titles, alternative titles, first lines (of songs, and in some cases first lines of song refrains), incipits, and uniform titles (such as the titles given by Francis James Child to certain ballads). Note that titles given to Child ballads within the Collection by Carpenter are not necessarily the standard titles as used in Francis James Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Users are advised to note the Uniform Title in the Item Display, if this title differs from the title searched, and to search on the Uniform Title or number using the Child ballad title or number.

Example

Initial search:

Second search:

All names All personal names mentioned in the Collection. These names are sometimes spelt inconsistently by Carpenter but have been entered exactly as written. Standardised forms of the name have also been entered into the catalogue, however, and these provide a link to all forms of the same name. For example, the search text 'Baldwin' will also locate 'Baldwyn'. Where there is no author attributed to an item, it is implied that the author is James Madison Carpenter.

Contributors' Names The names of persons who have acted as direct contributors of folkloric material to the Collection. These names are sometimes spelt inconsistently by Carpenter but have been entered exactly as written. Standardised forms of the name have also been entered into the catalogue, however, and these provide a link to all forms of the same name. For example, the search text 'Baldwin' will also locate 'Baldwyn'. Where there is no author attributed to an item, it is implied that the author is James Madison Carpenter.

Place The geographical place names in the Collection at the levels of country, county, locality, and address. It is possible to conduct a search of the Collection at any of these levels. Place names have sometimes been noted inconsistently by Carpenter but standardised forms of the place name(s) which have also been entered into the catalogue provide a link to all occurrences of the same place. The county names and boundaries used for British places are those of the ‘historic counties’, that is, those in use before the Local Government Act 1972 and the Lieutenancies Act 1997.

Date The 'date search' can search by month (word) and/or year (four digits). It should be pointed out that Carpenter rarely noted the date on which he noted items down. The majority of dates in the Collection refer to the year in which a published item mentioned or copied in the Collection was published. Other dates mentioned in the Collection include the approximate year in which a performer learnt or performed a certain item, the approximate year in which a person was born, the year a shanty singer shipped on board a particular ship, or the date on which a letter or note was written.

Genre This searches the items in the Collection by their intellectual or physical genre or sub-genre designation. A list of Genre Terms used in the catalogue and selected definitions are given below.

Page number For use when the page number is known. The page number entry should take the form of five digits, e.g. 01234. Some pages may contain more than one item, in which case all items will be retrieved. Some items may cover a number of pages in which case that including the page number entered will be retrieved.

Child ballad number or title Versions of the 305 ballads contained in Francis James Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-98) can be searched directly using this search field. Items can be searched by Child's designated title or Child number. It is also possible to browse the Child ballads in the Collection by Child title or number.

Name Authority File

This contains entries for most of the contributors to the Collection. At present, it is principally based on information contained in the Collection itself. In version 1.1 of the catalogue, more detailed entries for approximately forty contributors have been added which draw on sources outside the Collection. The Name Authority File also contains links between contributors to the Collection who are known to be members of the same family. It is also possible to search directly from an entry in the Name Authority File for all entries in the main catalogue associated with that person’s name.

Placename Authority File

This traces a large proportion of the places named in the Collection in Britain, Ireland and the United States, and provides Ordnance Survey references for locations in Britain. For British placenames, it is organized on the basis of the 'historic counties', that is, the county boundaries and names as they were prior to the Local Government Act 1972 and the Lieutenancies Act 1997 (see the Gazetteer of British Place Names. The Placename Authority File does not cover place names mentioned within song or play texts. It is possible to search directly from an entry in the Placename Authority File for entries in the main catalogue associated with that placename. It is also possible to browse the geographical names in the Collection by country, county or state, location and address.

Related Items

Related items within the Collection, such as a text transcription, sound recording and music notation of the same song as contributed by a particular singer, or a handwritten play text and the typed version of the same item, have also been provisionally identified and links to the entries for the related items incorporated into the catalogue. These relationships have so far been identified for the Child ballads, the shanties and the folk plays within the Collection.

Genre Terms

The following controlled vocabulary is used to describe items in the Carpenter Collection. Where the terms overlap, all relevant terms are employed in the catalogue. See also Genre Terms for Photographs.

Definitions of selected genres

The following genre descriptions are intended as a guide to the way in which the genre terms have been used in the catalogue to describe the form and content of items in the Collection; they are not necessarily generally applicable definitions of the respective folklore genres.

versions of the 305 song types included in Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-98), only.

Genre Terms for Photographs

The terms employed have been drawn, as far as possible, from the Proto Thesaurus for Ethnographic Material (PT), now the Ethnographic Thesaurus, and the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM).

Browse the Child Ballads in the Collection by Child Title or Number

Title

Number

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