How do I search the catalogue?
A quick search can be performed by typing a word or words into the box at the top right hand side.
Use double quotation marks to search for an exact phrase (so that the words appear next to each other in the text), e.g. "monetary policy".
If this does not find what you are looking for, then you may wish to try an advanced search.
Perform an advanced search using the button on the left hand menu. You can search on the following fields:
Any Text
Use this field to search all the text fields in the catalogue. Double quotation marks can be used to search for an exact phrase (so that the words appear next to each other in the text), e.g. "monetary policy".
Date
Searches can be carried out for a specific date, or for a range of years such as 1930s, 1930-1950, or mid 20th century. Search results will include records that incorporate the searched for date, so for example a search for 25 March 1979 will return a record dated 1920-1980 or 1970s, or a search for mid 20th century will return records with a date in the range 1930-1969 (early 20th century will return those dated 1900-1939 and late 20th century will return those dated 1960-1999).
Reference Number
Use this field if you know the Archive reference number of the specific series/group or item you require.
Title and Description
Use this field to narrow your search to text that only appears in the title or description of the record.
Original Reference
Files have not always been maintained in their original series. When you find a record of interest, it is worth noting its original reference number and doing a new search in the Original Reference field using the beginning of the reference number and a wildcard, e.g. for FE451_4 search for FE451_4*. This will return any catalogued records that belong to that original series. If the original reference number has a full stop, replace it with an underscore, e.g. FE451_4 instead of FE451.4.
Refine Search Criteria
You can narrow your search by selecting Refine Search Criteria. This gives three options:
- 'With all the words' - to search for records containing all the words but not necessarily next to each other in the text. By using double quotation marks the search will return records where the words appear as a phrase, i.e. next to each other in the text.
- 'With at least one of the words' - to search for records containing one or other of the words but not necessarily in the same record.
- 'Without the words' - to exclude a word or words from your search.
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Wildcard options
Use an asterisk (*) at the beginning or end of a word, or within a word, to return records which include variants of the search word, for example:
- A search for ‘bank*’ will return records that include the words banks and banking
- A search for ‘hum*rey’ will return records that include the names Humphrey and Humfrey
- A search for ‘*ward’ will return records that include the words inward and outward
Boolean searches
You may wish to combine search terms in your quick searches using the Boolean "and, or, not" searching options:
- + represents Boolean And, meaning the search result must include this word
- - represents Boolean Not, meaning the search result must exclude this word
- | represents Boolean Or, meaning the search result may include this word
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The results of your search will be displayed in a hit list which shows the total number of records returned at the top of the page.
The hit list displays the Reference Number, Title, Original Reference and Date of each item. You can sort the columns by clicking on the text at the top of each column.
Please note that the search term(s) may not appear in the text displayed in the hit list; if not, it will appear in the more detailed catalogue descriptions which can be viewed by clicking on the entry.
Record
By clicking anywhere on the text of a particular entry, the full description and all other relevant information to that record will be displayed. Click on the highlighted Reference Number if you then want to see the record in its series/group.
If a record is linked to a name in the names database, the related name record/s will be listed below and can be navigated to either by using the ‘Show related name records’ link or by clicking on the Code.
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To search the biographies of a person or organisation related to the Bank, or a department of the Bank, use the Name search. Alternatively you can search for all the people who held certain jobs in the Bank by entering the job title in the Name box, for example: Governor, Deputy Governor, Chief Cashier, or search all the departments of the Bank by entering Bank of England in the Name box.
Use the fields in the same way as instructed above to search across the names database. The Name field will narrow the search to the authorised form of the name only.
Note: only key people or organisations related to the Bank have been included in this database. This is not a search of names which may be contained in the actual archive documents.
Note: the search will only return the key records which have been identified as relating to the name. Use the catalogue search to find every occurrence of that name (hint: for persons who held senior positions, try entering just the job title and relevant dates in the catalogue search to find more records, for example, for Leslie O’Brien search Governor and 1966 – 1973).
Name search results
The results of your search will be displayed in a hit list which shows the total number of records returned at the top of the page.
The hit list displays the Code, Name and Date of each entry. You can sort the columns by clicking on the text at the top of whichever column you would like to re-order.
Name record
By clicking anywhere on the text of a particular entry, the full biography will be displayed. The related catalogue record/s will be listed below and can be navigated to either by using the ‘Show related catalogue records’ link or by clicking on the Reference Number.
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