Searching Your Archive
Archivers.ai's search runs across everything — accession names and descriptions, every file's metadata, the full text of every OCR'd document, every word of every transcript (audio and video), and your fonds hierarchy. You can search for specific phrases within transcripts just as you would for document text.
Where to search from
Two entry points:
- Search in the left sidebar (or Ctrl+K / Cmd+K from anywhere)
- The Search archive quick action on the Dashboard
The top banner says it succinctly: "Search across your archive — accessions, files, metadata, and fonds. Use quotes for exact phrases and dashes to exclude terms."
Query syntax
| Pattern | What it does |
|---|---|
derby county | Match either word, ranked by relevance |
"derby county" | Exact phrase |
flag -plastic | Match flag, exclude results containing plastic |
programme OR fixture | Either word |
Smith 1956 | Both terms (implicit AND) |
The platform uses Postgres websearch_to_tsquery under the hood — broadly intuitive but stricter than Google. If you're getting no results, try:
- Drop the quotes — phrase search matches the words in that order with no gaps
- Use OR for alternative spellings
- Use shorter terms —
phonographis more likely to match thanphonograph recording
Filters
Click Filters to open the panel:
| Filter | What it scopes |
|---|---|
| Category | Documents / Photographs / Artefacts / Audio / Video |
| Processing Status | All / Processing / Complete / Failed |
| Fonds | Restrict to one fond (or unassigned) |
| Accession | Restrict to one accession |
| Uploaded After | Date floor |
| Uploaded Before | Date ceiling |
Filters are combinable — "all photographs in the Thornton Family Papers fond, uploaded after January, that match 'wedding'" is one query.
Click Apply Filters to run.
Reading results
Each result card shows:
- Category icon and badge (Document / Audio / Video / Artefact)
- Status badge — Completed / Processing / Failed
- Reference code (if the item has been assigned to a fonds) — shown at the top of the card in reference-first mode, or muted below the filename in name-first mode
- Filename
- Parent accession (clickable, scopes search to that accession)
- Key fields — Date, Title, Creator, Condition (varies by category)
- Authority pills — linked subjects, people, places, organisations. Pills with vocab badges (LCSH, AAT, FAST, TGN, VIAF) are authoritative; pills without are local terms.
- Passage context (when available) — a marked excerpt from the best-matching passage in the item, with the page number (for documents) or timestamp (for audio/video). Gives you a preview of exactly where and why the item matches your search.
Hover a pill for the full URI and source. Click a pill to scope the search to that authority — useful for cross-collection discovery ("show me everything tagged Derby County FC, anywhere in my archive"). Click a passage timestamp to seek the player to that moment in the recording.
Sorting and pagination
Sorting:
- Newest first — by upload date, descending (default)
- Oldest first — by upload date, ascending
- Most relevant — by full-text relevance score (only useful when you have a query)
Switch sort with the dropdown at the top right of the results.
Results per page: Use the Show 20 / 50 / 100 dropdown to adjust how many results you see per page. Larger pages show more items at once; smaller pages load faster.
Tips
- Start broad, then filter. A keyword search returns more than you need; the filter panel narrows it.
- Try the authority pills. They're the bridge between "items that mention Derby County" and "items authoritatively tagged as Derby County FC". The second is usually what you want.
- Search inside an accession. Open an accession and the search bar at the top is scoped to that accession only — useful for big batches.
See also
- Selecting and adding — bulk operations on results
- Using the map — see where your items are geographically
- Authorities — the linked-data layer that powers the pills