Searching the Online Databases

To search the database, type a word or phrase into one of the text boxes on the search page and click on the "search" button. If you'd like to include a second or a third term in your search, type them into the other text boxes. This will allow you to narrow your search since the database will return results that contain all of your search terms.

Phrases and Multiple Terms

The contents of each text box are treated as a phrase. Entering "documentary film" into a text box will find a record containing the text "a documentary film about directors in the 1950's", but will not find a record containing the text "a documentary about film in the 1950's".

If you would like to search for two separate terms, you should enter them in separate text boxes. Entering "documentary" in the first text box and "film" in the second text box will return every record containing both of those words. For example, a video titled "Charlie Chaplin: A Documentary", with a note containing the text "A film about Charlie Chaplin" will be returned.

Wildcards

Each search term is automatically enclosed in wildcards. A search for "ubr" will return all of Stanley Kubrick's films. There is currently no way to include extra wildcards in your search, nor can you remove the automatic wildcards.

Capitalization

Searches are NOT case sensitive.

Special Characters

The search engine only accepts letters, numbers, and the dash (-) character.

The search engine was built with the PHP scripting language and the MySQL database. Each use semicolons, parentheses, and other special characters in the statements that control their behavior. Not accepting such characters in user input is one simple and safe way of protecting our system against malicious users who could otherwise disrupt service.

Long Search Terms

The search engine does not accept search terms or phrases longer than 60 characters.

Contact

Please send any comments or criticisms to the designer and maintainer of our system, Mike Lococo