The following tutorials will show you how to use the search engines to locate both images and text in various parts of the Archive. In a series of illustrated steps, we will search for a specific phrase, use the Boolean operators to perform a more complex search, and explore some of the image search and retrieval features.

1. Performing a basic text search

   To search for a phrase in the Archive, enter your search terms into the text search field and click "Search" (or press enter). For this example, we'll search for the phrase "forests of the night":

   

   It isn't necessary to enclose phrases in quotation marks; simply select the radio button labeled "Find this exact phrase" and click "Search."

   In a second or two, you'll see a page of search results. These results are drawn from the Archive's transcriptions of Blake's works, which are diplomatic and specific to individual copies of illuminated books. (For an explanation of our editorial policies, please see our statement of editorial principles.)

   

   To see all results at a glance, click the "reveal all" link. You can also use the blue disclosure triangles to reveal matches at the level of works, copies of works, or individual objects (such as individual paintings or plates of illuminated books). Matching text is highlighted in red and surrounded by some contextual information—a line of a poem, for example, or a few dozen words of prose.

   

   Scrolling down the list, you'll notice that the phrase "forests of night" (Europe a Prophecy) also appears as a match, even though our search was for "forests of the night." The reason for this match is that the search engine ignores very common words such as articles and prepositions. It also matches singular, plural, and possessive forms of a word, so "forests" would also match "forest" and, if applicable, "forest's."

   

   Following the link at the beginning of each matching line ("The Tyger," "object 11," or "object 12" in the examples above) will open the complete transcription for that object in a new window. The matching text will remain highlighted in red:

   

2. Advanced text searching options

   The basic functionality outlined above covers a wide range of search possibilities. However, it's possible to perform more sophisticated searches by using wildcards, Boolean operators, and date ranges. In this example, we want to match all instances in which Blake has used the word "desire," including any forms of the word when used as a verb (such as "desired" or "desiring") or adjective ("desirous").

   

   Because the asterisk operator (*) matches any sequence of letters, we see a variety of hits across different genres and years. If we want to focus on just one period of time—say, for example, the 1790s—we can restrict the date range of the results by adjusting the values at the top of the search result page and clicking "Update." The upper and lower bounds are inclusive, so entering 1790 to 1799 will include works composed in 1790, 1799, and all years in between. It's important to note that the dates refer to the composition date of the work, not the date of its printing. (Images are searchable by print date; see below in section 4).

   

   Another way to refine your search is to use Boolean operators when combining terms. So far, our examples have used a single term or a single phrase. But suppose that we want to search for instances where Blake has used the terms "eagle" or "serpent" (or both):

   

   The same format applies for Boolean AND searches: enter the search terms, select the "Find all terms" radio button, and click "Search."

3. Searching images

   The William Blake Archive uses a fixed vocabulary to describe postures, figures, gestures, objects, and other motifs that appear in Blake's pictorial work. For example, a person might be described as a child, standing and facing left with arms raised. The italicized terms are part of the Archive's fixed image description vocabulary, which you can view by clicking "Show categories and terms used for image search" on the main search page:

   

   This illustration shows only a few of the possible search terms. To search for images containing one or more of the terms, select up to ten checkboxes and click "Search." The default search is a Boolean AND search; you will see images containing all of the selected terms. To change the search behavior to Boolean OR, select the appropriate radio button at the top of the main search page.

   A quicker way to search for pictorial elements is to enter your search terms in the image search box at the top of the search page. For example, if you were to enter "child serpent" and select Boolean AND, your search results would include all images depicting both a child and a serpent.

   

   After clicking "Search," you'll see a collapsed list of results. This list behaves the same way as the list of text results; you can reveal all the matches at once, or you can browse individual works by clicking on disclosure triangles. Results for each work or copy of a work appear as rows of thumbnails with associated menus:

   

   At this point, you can mouse over any thumbnail to see an enlargement; you can click the object title (e.g., "object 2" or "object 4" above) to visit the complete object view page; or you can select any of the three options in the "Image options" menu. The first of these options, "Lightbox," will send the full-size image to the Virtual Lightbox application (For help using the Virtual Lightbox, please consult its documentation.) The second option, "Illustration Description," will open a new window displaying the complete illustration description; your search terms will be highlighted in red. The example below shows a portion of the illustration description:

   

   The final option, "Object View Page," will open a new window for the object view page of the selected image.

4. Advanced image search features

   The image search offers some advanced functionality that can help you locate and organize objects in the Archive. The first of these features, print-date sorting, allows you to group image search results by their print date rather than by a work's composition date. To enable print-date sorting, select "Print date" from the drop-down menu at the top of the results page and then click "Update."

   

   After you change the sorting behavior, the search engine will reorganize the results by year of printing. Works that weren't "printed" in the same sense as illuminated books or engravings are still included in the results; their date of composition is taken to be the "print" date as well.

   

   Another advanced feature is the image search thesaurus. This feature is useful because it allows free-form image searches that aren't restricted by the list of terms (illustrated in section 3 above). For example, if you were to search for "baby," your search would return no hits because the word "baby" isn't part of the Archive's fixed vocabulary for image descriptions. However, the search engine will offer to broaden your search to include synonyms and near-matches:

   

   Once you've selected this checkbox, clicking "Update" will re-submit your search with the new, more inclusive criteria, which will generally yield many more results:

   

   The reverse situation also applies: if you search for "child" but want to broaden your search to include "boy," "girl," infant," and so on, you can include synonyms to see a wider range of matches.

5. Searching other parts of the Archive

   On the left side of the search results page, a menu lists several content areas in the Archive. To perform your search in any given content area, simply click the appropriate link. The currently selected content area appears in bold text.

   
   • Transcriptions of Blake's Works: the transcribed text of objects created by Blake. It's the default section for text searches, as in section 1 above.

   • Blake's Images: the fixed keywords used to describe images. This section is the default for image searches, as in section 3 above.

   • Editors' Illustration Descriptions: prose descriptions of Blake's images written by the Archive editors. This category allows for a broader search of image descriptions, unrestricted by the fixed keyword vocabulary.

   • Editors' Notes and Work Information: editorial apparatus relating to works, copies of a work, and individual objects in the Archive. For example, a search for "Catherine Blake" in this section will return results such as:
     

   • The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by David V. Erdman: the MLA-approved scholarly edition of Blake's complete works. The electronic edition of this work is useful for concordance generation and for studying texts not available elsewhere in the Archive.

   • Other Content in the Archive: pages about the Archive itself, including update announcements, help documentation, and credits.

   Each of these content areas works in the same way as the basic text and image searches: you can unfold results by clicking "reveal all" or clicking individual disclosure triangles, and in some cases, you can refine your results by date range.