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Help: Search History

• What is the Search History page?
• Running a search
• Adding a search to My Archive
• Modifying a search
• Clearing searches
• Combining searches

What is the Search History page?

The Search History page records all the searches you have run during the current session. It allows you to run searches again, modify them, save them to My Archive, combine them with other searches or delete them from your list.

There is a separate Search History page for Collection Searches and Repository Searches.

Note that the searches on the Search History page are only retained for a single session, so any information recorded there will be lost once you exit Archive Finder. If you want to keep a search beyond the current session then you must save it to the My Archive area. Please also note that results from a Quick Search are not stored in the Search History.

Click the Search History link in the main areas of Archive Finder to open the Search History index.

Note that only the terms of your search are recorded, not the results of the search itself.

Each entry in the list consists of:

• A number to indicate the position of a search in the list.
• The terms that make up your search.
• An Add to My archive link.
• A Modify search link.
• The number of records retrieved by the search.

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Running a search

1. Click the underlined search terms for the search you want to run.

The results of the search will be displayed on the relevant Search Results page.

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Adding a search to My Archive

To save a search for use beyond the length of the current session you must save it to My Archive:

1. Click the Add to My Archive on the Search Results page.

Find out more about adding searches to My Archive.

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Modifying a search

You may want to change elements of a search to widen or narrow the scope. Instead of having to enter your search terms all over again, you can use the Modify search link.

1. Click the Modify search link corresponding to the search you want to alter.
   The search page, along with all the search terms you originally specified, is displayed.
    
   
2. Edit the terms you want to change and click the Search button to run the search with your revised terms.

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Deleting searches

1. Click the Delete these searches link to remove all searches from the current list.

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Combining searches

You may wish to combine previous searches from the Search History list and see how it affects the number of results retrieved:

1. Type the numbers of the two searches into the Combine Searches boxes.
    
   
2. Select the required Boolean operator from the drop-down list.
    
   
3. Click the Combine Searches button to run the new search.

When the search is complete the relevant Search Results page will open.

Searches which contain a UK state and a UK county are mutually exclusive and therefore combining them will not produce any results.

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