Advice for using the search engine

The search engine has 9 search categories (Author, Title, Publisher, Year of Publication, Author of Review, Subject, Keyword, Time Period, and Tpoic).  An individual search can use all nine parameters or no parameter.  Using more than one parameter narrows the search.  For example, using “Avant-Garde” as a Keyword search will list all reviews in which the term “Avant-Garde” appears, ranking the reviews by how often the term occurs in each review.  Combining the Keyword search “Avant-Garde” with the Subject “Film Studies” will limit the reviews listed to only those identified as “Film Studies” and in which the term “Avant-Garde” appears (again ranked in order of frequency of the term). 

Selecting multiple options from within a single parameter expands the search.  For example, selecting the Subject “History” and the Date Ranges “1774-1815,” “1815-1871” and “1871-1913” will list all reviews coded as “History” from all three date ranges.  These reviews will be listed in alphabetical order by title.

The most effective searches are often obtained by mixing Keyword, Date Range, Subject, and/or Topic searches.  A few examples:

• Cultural and artistic movements (surrealism, New Wave, haptic, baroque, etc.) and philosophical schools (Cartesianism, existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism, etc.) are best searched through Keywords combined with Date Ranges.
  
• Keyword searches are most effective when using proper names.  While most reviews are in English, 10-15% of the review are in French.  As a result, Keyword searches of terms such as “New Wave” also will need to be searched under “Nouvelle Vague” in order to retrieve reviews in French and English that use this term. 
  
• Combining the Subject “Art History” with the Topic “Institutions” will find all of the reviews with a focus on art institutions (use similar combinations for film, music, and literary institutions).
  
• In order to keep the topics to a manageable number, many historical topics (for example, patronage, feudalism, laïcité, etc.) have not been listed as topics but are best searched as Keyword terms combined with Date Ranges.