Search tips

General searching
Wildcard characters
Punctuation
Search using reference numbers
Search for dates
Browse by subject
Understanding your search results
Change the display order
Search within results
Too many results?
No results or too few results?
If your search doesn't work at all

PhotoSearch searches descriptions of more than 110,000 photographs from the National Archives collection. This is only a portion of our photographic collection with several thousand images being added each month.

General searching

To begin, type one or more words (or numbers) into the Search for box. You then need to select a search option from the dropdown menu in the As box. Your options are:

All words: If you select All words this will search the title of each image for all the words you typed. For example, alice springs will find image titles with both alice AND springs in the image title, though they may be separated by other words.
Any words: If you select Any words this will search the title of each image for any of the words you typed. For example, alice springs will find image titles that include either alice or springs or both, including titles where they are separated by other words.
Phrase: To restrict your search, select Phrase. For example, alice springs will only find image titles that include alice springs in that exact order, with no other words between.
Case: PhotoSearch is not case-sensitive. You can type your search terms in uppercase or lowercase, or in any combination.
Plurals: PhotoSearch will only retrieve the exact words you enter. To retrieve both the singular and plural of your search term, enter both forms in the Search for box separated by a comma (for example, clown, clowns) and select an Any words search. (Or use a wildcard, see the next section.)
Default setting: If you make no selection, your search will be an All words search.

Wildcard characters

Asterisk: Use an asterisk (star) * to find all variations of a word. For example, malay* will find image titles containing the words Malay, Malays, Malaya, Malaysia, Malaysian etc.

Punctuation

Hyphens: For search terms that may occur with or without a hyphen (such as Governor-General) you may omit the hyphen. Select Phrase from the dropdown menu. This will retrieve both the hyphenated and unhyphenated forms.

Acronyms: Acronyms can be entered with or without full stops (eg CSIRO or C.S.I.R.O.). To retrieve all relevant image descriptions, conduct two separate searches, one on CSIRO and one on C.S.I.R.O.

Search using reference numbers

Series number: To retrieve all image titles in a particular collection or series in PhotoSearch, type the series number into the Search for box and select Series number from the dropdown menu in the As box.

Image number: Type the image number into the Search for box and select Image number from the dropdown menu in the As box. You can use an asterisk * wildcard to retrieve a range of images with the same leading item numbers. For example L235* will find all image numbers beginning with L235. This is the only method for searching for more than one item number at a time.

Barcode number: Type the barcode number into the Search for box and select Barcode number from the dropdown menu in the As box.

Search for dates

Use the Date box to search for images taken in a particular year. Enter a single year (for example, 1913) or two years separated by a dash to find all images taken within a particular date range (for example, 1899-1903).

You can search on a date or date range alone, or combine it with a word search. For example, to find images of the 1976 VFL grand final type VFL grand final in the Search for box, select a Phrase search and type 1976 in the Date box.

Browse by subject

The Browse option on the Search screen allows you to find images listed under particular subjects.

Browse titles by subject: enables you to browse all image titles listed on PhotoSearch under particular subjects.

Note: some images are not listed by subject. To ensure that you find all images relevant to your project, supplement your Browse search with a search for related terms using the Search for box.

How to browse: Clicking on the Browse options takes you to an A to Z subjects page. Clicking on a letter displays the searchable primary subject headings available under that letter. Clicking on a primary heading displays the secondary subject headings available for that primary heading.

You can see descriptions of the images listed under a primary or secondary subject by clicking on the primary or secondary subject heading.

Understanding your search results

Search terms: The terms you searched for are displayed at the top of the search results screen with the number of items found. Only the first 2000 items are displayed.

Number displayed: Your search results are displayed in sets of 10 items per page (the default option). To increase or reduce the number of items displayed per page use the Return X search results per page option at the bottom of the Search screen.

Navigate between pages: To move between results pages, use the page numbers and navigation links at the bottom of each page.

The search results screen This screen displays a thumbnail image and the first 150 characters of the title. To view the full title and a larger viewing image, click on the thumbnail or the title link.

Image descriptions: Both the Search results screen and the enlargement screen display descriptive information about the image. There are also buttons that enable you to purchase the image and find out about your copyright obligations. The information provided for each image includes the following:

Primary subject: Use this link to retrieve all images listed under this subject heading.
Secondary subject: Use this link to retrieve all images listed under this subject heading.
Image number: Quote this number when ordering a copy of the image.
Location: This field displays the city where the National Archives holds the original image.
Find other items in this series: Use this link to retrieve all images in this series that are available online.

To leave an item description and return to your search results click the Back button on your web browser.

Change the display order

Search results are first displayed in random order.

You can sort your search results by clicking one of the Sort order buttons at the top of the search results screen (just below the Refine search button).

Image number: sorts and displays the results in the order of image number.
Title: sorts and displays the results in alphabetical order, by the first word in the title.
Date: sorts and displays the results in date order, with the earliest date displayed first.

Search within results

Searching within results helps you to narrow down your search results little by little.

Refine by subject: A Refine search button appears with your search results if your search finds more than one image description. Click this button to search within your results. For example, if you first searched for all images with the word entertainment in the title, you could narrow your search by clicking the Refine search button and entering opera. This will display image descriptions within your initial search results that also have the word opera in the title.

Refine by date: If your search results are still too large, you can further refine the search by clicking the Refine search button again and entering a date or date range.

Refine by location: You can also narrow your results to images held by the National Archives office in a particular capital city. To do this, use the Located in option in dropdown menu.

Too many results?

If your search terms are too broad (for example, Sydney) there may be thousands of images in the PhotoSearch database. To avoid this, use search terms that are more specific (for example, Sydney Harbour).

Alternatively, narrow you search results progressively by using the Refine search button (see previous section).

No results or too few results?

Check that you typed in your search term, reference number or date correctly.
Check that you selected the correct search option (All words, Any words, Phrase, Series number, Image number or Barcode number).
If searching for a date, make sure that you typed the date in the Date box, not the Search for box.
Check that your first search was not too specific. A more general search may find image descriptions (for example, try cyclone instead of tropical cyclone).
Try other spellings. For example, Roumania for Romania, Viet Nam for Vietnam, Paterson for Patterson.
Remember that image titles reflect the terminology that was used when the image was created. For example, try:
- conscription as well as national service
- Australian Broadcasting Commission as well as Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Names of countries and territories change, so you should search on all variations. For example, try:
- Australian Capital Territory as well as Federal Capital Territory
- Malaya as well as Malaysia
- Indonesia as well as Indonesian, Netherlands East Indies, Dutch East Indies and East Indies
- Sri Lanka as well as Ceylon
Try all variations. For example, try:
- MCG as well as Melbourne Cricket Ground.
- Acronyms both with and without full stops, for example, CSIRO as well as C.S.I.R.O.

If your search doesn't work at all

Your search may time out if there is a lot of traffic over the Internet when PhotoSearch is gathering your search results. If this occurs a database error message will advise you to start your search again.

If PhotoSearch is temporarily unavailable, a notice will be displayed on the main PhotoSearch page. Until it is available again you can view thumbnails of the images it contains through PictureAustralia.

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