Search Tools Help Topics

• Search Tools Overview
• Browser
• Lookup...
• Thumbnail Browser
• English Index
• Search Saver

Search Tools Overview

With the large scope of data in Perseus, specialized tools are needed to give you control of the data and access to it. The searching tools described in this chapter help you find information quickly and make your search methods strategic and efficient. With the searching tools you can:

• find specific objects (a particular vase, a text reference, an image).
• find classes of objects (plays by Sophocles, vases from the early classical period, sculpture associated with the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, coins keyworded with "Scylla").
• see textual and visual summaries of objects before going to the more detailed sources of information.

The basic tools for searching across the Perseus database are the Browser, Thumbnail Browser, English Index and Search Saver. The Browser and Thumbnail Browser, in particular, help you target information for detailed study and spend less time following false leads.

The Lookup tool performs some limited searching features, but it is primarily a navigation tool for going directly to resources in Perseus.

The Browser offers a centralized way of finding and viewing data in Perseus. It provides a way to search through architecture, coins, sculpture, sites, and vases looking for various attributes and keywords. You can choose the Browser from the Gateway or the Links menu.

Coins, sculpture, and vases in the Perseus database have been linked to the Browser by keyword. If you choose the item Keywords from the search topic pop-up menu for these objects, a second pop-up menu appears for you to select a category of keywords.

Note that more than one Browser window can be left open simultaneously. The number of windows you can open is dependent on your computer's available memory.

Task: Search for vases in Perseus from the early classical period. From the Gateway, click the Browser icon, or from anywhere in Perseus, choose Browser from the Links menu.

Click the Vases button upper left to highlight it. Immediately to the right of the Vases button is a pop-up menu containing search topics. Choose Period from this pop-up menu. A list of attributes appears in the field below. In this case, it is a list of chronological periods.

Scroll down and click the line Early Classical in the list of attributes. Your selection is now highlighted, and the Browser immediately conducts the search. The Browser puts the results into three columns.

The parameters of your search are recorded in bold in the horizontal field below the list of object types and the attribute list. This information indicates the type of object, search topic, and the number of objects identified with those parameters. In the example used here, the search for vases of the Early Classical period yields 208 vases.

Use the scroll bar on the far right to scroll through the three-column list of results. The three columns may be viewed by any attribute. Change the attribute viewed in any column by using the pop-up menu at the top of the column.

The labels at the top of each column are pop-up menus listing all possible attributes of that type of object. You can display any attribute in any column. By default, the object's name always appears in the left column. In this example, the first vase listed is from the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, identified as such by the attribute Collection. Its catalog Name is Austin 1980.63, and its Shape is Lekythos.

Change the type of information shown in the middle column by choosing Summary from the pop-up menu at the top of the middle column. Now you can read that this vase shows "Flying Nike with kithara and phiale."

Click any line in any of the three columns to go to that object's Catalog entry. The images and descriptions are stored in the Catalog entries. The default settings for the five object databases are, left to right:

• Architecture - Name, Site and Type
• Coins - Name, Collection and Material
• Sculpture - Name, Collection and Title
• Sites - Name, Type and Summary
• Vases - Name, Collection and Shape

To save the results of your search, click the Search Saver icon on the Navigator Palette. The information displayed in the Browser's left column will be saved in the Search Saver. (Operation of the Search Saver is described below.)

Click the Thumbs button (upper right) to open the Thumbnail Browser. (The Thumbnail Browser feature is described separately below.

The lookup tool is described in the first section, "Navigating the Perseus Environment."

The Thumbnail Browser is a browsing tool used to survey and select images. It gives you a quick and comprehensive visual overview of a single object or group of objects. The Thumbnail Browser displays a series of postage-stamp size images ("thumbnails") in a single full color window. You can page and browse through hundreds of thumbnails without having to call up the full-size images.

The Thumbnail Browser can display images from all five object databases: architecture, coins, sculpture, sites, and vases. It is most useful when you want to survey a large group of images without having to open each full-size image. The Thumbnail Browser is not as useful for surveying only a few images.

Note that more than one Thumbnail Browser window can be left open simultaneously. The number of windows you can open is dependent on your computer's available memory.

The Thumbnail Browser is opened either from the Browser or from a Catalog entry, by clicking on the Thumbs button. The following example continues the search for all vases of the Early Classical period described in the section above.

Task: Click the Thumbs button on the Browser after the search results have appeared.

The Thumbnail Browser for vases will appear. (Depending on the speed of your system, this may take a moment.) The thumbnail images that appear represent one to three canonical images of each vase found in the search.

Please be aware that the Thumbnail Browser displays images in groups of 16, and includes a pop-up menu for changing pages of the display. Objects are depicted in the sequence they appear in the Browser, which is alphabetically, by Name. In the example used here, the Thumbnail Browser loads the thumbnails onto 20 separate pages, in order to include pictures of all 208 Early Classical vases found in the Browser search.

Note that when the Thumbnail Browser is accessed from the Browser, it does not show all available images for each object, but rather selected images for each object, usually two. When you use the Thumbnail Browser from the Catalog entries, all available images for the object are shown as thumbnails.

A black box around an image indicates that this image is selected and that its caption appears in the text field at the top.

Click other thumbnails in the Thumbnail Browser to select different images and see their captions. The caption includes the object's name, a description of the image, and a credit line.

To see the full-size image of a thumbnail, double-click it (or select it by clicking it once, then click the button Image, upper right). Click the Catalog button to open the Catalog entry of the object depicted by the selected thumbnail.

With the English Index tool, you can perform word searches in English throughout the entire range of Perseus resources. You can link directly from the results of your search to the locations in Perseus where the word appears. The English Index is located under the Links menu.

The English Index is an index of all English words in Perseus occurring in the Historical Overview, Encyclopedia, Object Catalogs, and translations of Primary Texts. You can use this tool to search for locations of an English word or a string of letters at the beginning, middle or ending of a word.

Task: Look for the string "weav" occurring anywhere in a word in all of Perseus.

The string "weav" was chosen because the search will produce results not only for "weave," but for "interweaving," "weaving-pins," etc.

Choose English Index from the Links menu. Click the Look for field to make the insertion point appear. Type in "weav".

Choose Top of List from the Show List at pop-up menu.

You can narrow your search by choosing a designated search area (for example, All Texts for all Primary Text works, a selected author, the Site Catalog, or the Encyclopedia).

Choose the type of search from the Position pop-up menu (Exact Match for a complete word, Anywhere for a string of characters anywhere within a word, Starting Characters or Ending Characters). In this case, choose Anywhere. Click Do Search to activate the word search. The results of the search will be reported on the left. Select any word to bring up its citation.

You can save the list of citations by clicking on the Search Saver icon on the Navigator Palette. Use of the Search Saver is described more thoroughly below.

Go directly to a citation by scrolling down and highlighting the citation you wish to link with. Then click the Go There button.

The Search Saver is a tool designed to store your search results obtained during a Perseus session. This tool is accessed from the Search Saver icon on the Navigator Palette, and lives in a floating window. It stores a list of object citations found in a search that may be linked with the objects inside Perseus to which they refer. Each citation can be clicked to go to the full entry. For example, when you use the Browser to search for Early Classical vases, you can use the Search Saver to avoid returning to the Browser each time you want to link with a new vase entry in the Vase Catalog.

The contents of the Search Saver are automatically erased when you save a new search, when you close the Search Saver by clicking in the box in the upper left, and when you end your Perseus session. To save the results of a search for later use, you will need to copy and paste Search Saver data to a simple word processing file.

Saving Searches from the Browser

As you use Perseus to investigate a topic, you can temporarily store the results of searches produced by the database tools, such as the Browser and Philological Tools, in the Search Saver. Your results are kept in a floating window that remains open until you close it. Once you have stored a search in the Search Saver window, you can continue working in the same tool or resource, or go to a new part of Perseus while the results of the stored search remain accessible.

Task: The following example continues the search for all vases of the Early Classical period described above. Save the results of the search by clicking the Search Saver icon on the Navigator Palette.

The Search Saver window appears, with the results of the current search copied into it, in this case, the contents of the far left column of the Browser. If you change the attribute displayed in the left column of the Browser and click the Search Saver icon again, the Search Saver will list the search results using the new attribute.

By default, vases are listed by name, collection, and shape. If you would like to save a list of the summary descriptions of Early Classical vases, you can change the attribute of the left column from Name to Summary by releasing the mouse on Summary under the left column's pop-up menu, then click the Search Saver icon. The Search Saver lists the vases found in your search by summary, the attribute selected for display in the left column.

Try to store searches in the Search Saver with descriptive or varying information, such as shape, context, or summary. This will create a Search Saver list customized to your particular research question.

To continue the example of vases of the Early Classical period, double-click the top line in the Search Saver window ("Flying Nike with kithara and phiale.", if results are listed by Summary, or "Austin 1980.63", if results are listed by Name). Perseus will display the Vase Catalog window containing the entry for this vase. When you want to see another vase from the search, double-click another line in the Search Saver window.

The Search Saver window retains the current search results as long as the Search Saver window is open. Clicking the Search Saver icon to save a new search will replace the current search results. Clicking the close box of the Search Saver window will close the Search Saver and will erase the current search results. To save the results of a search for later use, you will need to copy and paste Search Saver data to a simple word processing file.

Saving Searches from Other Perseus Databases

The Search Saver can be used to store a search from any list of data references inside Perseus. These areas include the English Index, Philological Tools, indexes for the Art & Archeology objects, and the Atlas.

In the Atlas, you can use the Search Saver to save a list of the sites you have plotted on a map. You can also use the Plot sites from Search Saver feature in the Atlas menu to plot a list of sites you have saved from elsewhere in Perseus. See the Atlas help for more information on the Plot sites from Search Saver menu option.

When you use the Philological Tools to conduct searches, you can also use the Search Saver to store the results. In this case, the Search Saver stores the results applicable to the particular tool (citations for Greek Words in Proximity, words and their locations for the Greek Word Search, and so on).

Task: Save the results of a Greek Word Search for ἀλκή in Euripides.

Choose Greek Word Search from the Links menu. Type ἀλκή (courage) into the Look for field. (Or, if you do not have SMK GreekKeys installed, you will need to copy and paste the word in. Go to Euripides Phoenissae 274 by typing Eur. Phoen. 274 into the Lookup tool and pressing Return, copy ἀλκή from the text and paste it into the Look for field in Greek Word Search.) Further information on GreekKeys and typing in Greek characters is given here.

Choose Euripides from the pop-up menu on the right. Click the Do Search button. The results appearing in the lower left are nine forms derived from ἀλκή. Choose Citations for All Forms from the Options pop-up menu.

Save these citations by clicking the Search Saver icon on the Navigator Palette.

Go to a citation by double-clicking it in the Search Saver.

The Search Saver can also be used to compare the results of one search with the results of another search. After you have saved the results of a search in the Search Saver, perform a second search with different parameters. One set of results appears in the Search Saver window, and the second is in the current tool.

Return to Top
Return to Perseus Help Topics Index