The Search Function/s
We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for users to find what they’re looking for.
Below, you’ll find a short guide to the four main ways of searching the website.
Please note that this guide is aimed at those using a desktop or laptop computer. The principles as described in the text are the same for mobile and tablet, but the layout of the website, and thus the layout of its search components, will differ slightly.
Website Search
If you click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of each page, you’ll be taken to the main search portal. This allows you to search through every single item on the website.
You can change the order in which documents are displayed by selecting different options on the ‘Sort By’ dropdown.
You can search either by typing in the textbox labelled ‘Search within titles’ or performing a filter search via the boxes on the left-hand side of the screen. The latter allows you to filter results by Opposition, Season, Competition, Time Period, Medium, Home/Away, and/or Subject.
Opposition, Season, Time Period, and Medium are checkboxes. You can select multiple options within and across these filters to narrow your search.
The text box at the top of each filter allows users to focus on specific options.
Home/Away and Subject are dropdowns. You can only select one option within these filters, but they work in tandem with the others.
So, for instance, if you select '1979-1980' in Season, the search page will display 27 results (20 on the first page and 7 on the second page).
The options presented by the other filters will change automatically in line with the remaining documents. If you look at the competition filter, you’ll notice the options available are ‘Division 4’ (24 results), ‘F.A. Cup’ (1 result), and ‘League Cup’ (2 results).
If you select ‘League Cup’, the following two matchday programmes will appear:
Remember to reset the filters when you start again.
Volume Search
The website contents are divided into discrete groupings known as Collections, Volumes, Documents, and Images (click here for a more in-depth explanation of the website’s structure).
The volume-level search function is effectively the same as the website one. The only difference is that each volume has a different range of filters depending on its contents. The volumes in Matchday Programmes, for example, allow users to search by typing in the textbox labelled ‘Search within titles’ or filtering by Opposition, Season, Competition, and/or Home/Away.
Again, remember to reset the filters before searching for something else.
Document Search
On a document page (i.e., Chelsea vs. Huddersfield Town - Saturday, 18th November, 1911), you can quickly search for related items via the tags located underneath the image viewer.
Clicking on one of the tags—say, ‘Division 2’—will take you to the main search portal and automatically display all relevant documents.
You can also browse related items from the same volume.
Image Viewer Search
You also can use the index on the image viewer to browse or search for contents.
What’s more, all the images on the website have been subject to Optical Character Recognition (OCR), which means that you can search for words or phrases contained within the images. So, if you want to find every instance in which a programme from the late-1960s mentions Frank Worthington, just type his name into the search bar at the bottom and press enter or click on the magnifying glass icon.
The results will be displayed on the contents bar and just above the search bar. On the images themselves, the relevant word or phrase will be highlighted in blue.
