2009/3/24 Gavin Bell <g.bell@which.net> wrote in reply to NIvard Ovington: > I don't know about wildcarding, but there is an obvious option on the "simple search" page to specify your search terms as "phrase", "all words (AND)" or "any word (OR)":  This is clearly described just beneath the box where you enter your search terms: > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Use "phrase" to look for exact matches to a group of words, for example John Smith would find only records containing this name; Use "all words" to look for records which contain all of the specified words in any order, for example a search for John Smith would also find a record containing "the smith in the village was called John Brown"; use "any word" to find all records which contain any of the specified words - in this case all records containing "John" and all records containing "Smith". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gavin I went to NAS & clicked on "Help with this site". There are two links to the " Search" facility. Both go to a page with only a single box for searching and no instructions such as the ones you indicate. Nivard said: > > (in desperation I even read the instructions) You replied > If you had read the above (and it is really fairly hard to miss) then you would have discovered ... Well I think it is actually very hard TO FIND. You don't say how one is to find those instructions. Where on earth are they? I looked for a decent search facility on the NAS site last year and gave up in despair Confused Ray

Ray Hennessy wrote: >... > >There are two links to the " Search" facility. Both go to >a page with only a single box for searching and no >instructions such as the ones you indicate. > > Because of the way the NAS website works (it appears not to have static HTML pages but to generate pages "on the fly") it is not possible to give a simple URL, but the route I followed was: (1) from "www.nas.gov.uk" I clicked on the link (in the list in the lower rh side of the screen) marked "Catalogues and Indexes" (2) this brought up the page "www.nas.gov.uk/catalogues/default.asp". Halfway down that page is a link marked "Search NAS catalogue" (3) this brings up the page "www.nas.gov.uk/onlineCatalogue/" (and this URL is unchanged in all the following). Click on the link marked "Search" (4) without changing the apparent URL, this brings up a page with a box marked "Search for:" and the wording I quoted concerning serach types is immediately beneath. There is also, in the "headine" band of this page, an option for "Advanced Search". >Nivard said: > > >>>(in desperation I even read the instructions) >>> >>> > >You replied > > >>If you had read the above (and it is really fairly >> >> >hard to miss) then you would have discovered ... > >Well I think it is actually very hard TO FIND. You don't >say how one is to find those instructions. Where on >earth are they? I looked for a decent search facility >on the NAS site last year and gave up in despair > > I would agree that the route to this page is a little baroque, but it was the page I found from a cold start, calling up "nas.gov.uk" and looking for a search facility. Sorry for delay in replying - I have been away improving my mind at various London galleries and museums. Gavin