Wildcard searches

• Find variations of a keyword by entering the common start of the word followed by an asterisk. For example, 'Malay*' will find 'Malay', 'Malaya', 'Malayan', 'Malaysia' and 'Malaysian'.
• Enter more characters before an asterisk for more precise searching. For example, use 'Malay*' rather than 'Mal*', which will find 'malaria', 'Malay', 'Malaya', 'Malcolm', 'male', 'Malta', 'Malvern' and other words.
• Find alternative spellings by entering both spellings (such as 'naturalisation naturalization') and selecting the 'any words' option.

Acronyms

• To find an acronym, enter the string with and without full stops (for example. 'CSIRO C.S.I.R.O.' and select the 'any words' option.

Punctuation

• Do not use punctuation or symbols such as + = # ? ( ) [ ] or %
• Full stops, apostrophes and slashes can be used. For example, 'C.S.I.R.O.', 'O'Brien' or '11/44 Infantry Battalion'.

Hyphens

• Include hyphens where necessary. For example, 'Governor-General' not 'Governor General'

Case

• RecordSearch is not case-sensitive. Using uppercase letters, lowercase letters or a combination will produce the same result.

Searching for all words, any words or phrases

If using two or more keywords, select 'all words', 'any words' or 'exact phrase' from the drop-down menu. The option you choose will affect the results you see.

For example, for the keywords 'civil defence':

• 'all words' (the default setting) will only find records that include both civil and defence (though they may be separated by other words)
• 'any words' will find records that include 'civil', 'defence' or both words.
• 'exact phrase' will only find records that include 'civil' and 'defence' in that order with no other words between.

Keyword order

• Keyword order is only important in exact phrase searches. When doing an exact phrase search for proper names such as 'Alice Springs' or 'Joint Intelligence Bureau', the words must be entered in the same order that they appear in the name.

Singular/plural forms

To search for both singular and plural and forms you can either:

• Enter both the singular and plural forms (for example 'internee internees') as an 'any word' search.
• Enter the singular form followed by an asterisk (eg internee*).

Synonyms and related terms

• To maximise your results, enter all possible synonyms and related terms as an 'any word' search. For example:
  • 'Antarctic and Antarctica or Antarctic*
  • 'nuclear and atomic'
  • 'Sino, Chinese and China'.
• Remember that some terms may have alternative or former spellings. For example:
  • Soeharto vs Suharto
  • Roumania vs Romania
  • Freemantle vs Fremantle
  • communist vs communistic.
• Include any previous names of countries or territories. For example:
  • the Australian Capital Territory was formerly the Federal Capital Territory
  • Argentina was known as the Argentine
  • Indonesia was formerly the Netherlands East Indies and East Indies.

To search for keywords within a particular series:

• Enter the keyword(s) you want to search for in the ‘keywords in title’ field.
• Enter the series number into the ‘series number’ field.
• Enter any other search parameters (such as a date range) in the appropriate fields
• Click ‘search’