Searching

You can perform a simple search by typing keywords in the search box on the home page and clicking "Search". The search engine will return results that include all of your search terms.

You can search for an exact phrase by placing quotation marks around your search terms, for example "new plymouth".

You can use Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT to refine your search results. AND (include all of the words) and NOT (without the words) narrow your search; OR (with at least one of the words) broadens your search. For example, plymouth NOT new will retrieve articles about Plymouth but not New Plymouth.

On the search results page, the "Search limited to" area shows any filters that were applied to the search. You can remove these by clicking the "x" icons. The "Refine search" area shows the most common values occurring in various categories in the search results. Selecting one of these facets applies it as a search filter.

Advanced search

The Advanced Search tab allows you to limit your search results by:

• One or more publications

• A date range

It also allows you to search within titles only, choose the number of search results you want displayed on each page, and choose whether you would like preview images displayed with your search results.

Optical Character Recognition

Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, is a process by which software reads a page image and translates it into a text file by recognising the shapes of the letters (The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials).

OCR enables searching of large quantities of full-text data, but it is never 100% accurate. The level of accuracy depends on the print quality of the original issue, its condition at the time of microfilming, the level of detail captured by the microfilm scanner, and the quality of the OCR software. Issues with poor quality paper, small print, mixed fonts, multiple column layouts, or damaged pages may have poor OCR accuracy.

The searchable text and titles in this collection have been automatically generated using OCR software. They have not been manually reviewed or corrected.

To look at the OCR text, select the page/article and click the "Text of this page/Text of this article" link.

How to correct text

The text correction interface is accessed by clicking the "Correct this text" link when viewing section text. This interface is split into two parts: the right side shows the page images that make up the document, and the left side is used for editing the lines of text.

When you move your mouse over the page images in the right pane, the blocks making up the pages will highlight. You can scroll this view by dragging with the mouse, or zoom in/out using the buttons above the viewer. Clicking a highlighted block will select it and load a form for editing that block into the left pane.

Correct the text line by line. A red box is displayed in the right pane to help you determine what text should be included in the line. Once you have finished correcting text, click "Save". The changes you make will take effect immediately. Alternatively, clicking the "Cancel" button will discard any unsaved changes you have made.

You can then make further corrections to the same block, move onto the next block by clicking the "Next" button, select another block in the right pane, or exit the text correction view by clicking the "Return to viewing mode" link. Clicking "Save & exit" instead of "Save" will save the changes and then return you to the normal viewing mode automatically.