1. Why did I remain on the Search page after I pressed the search button?
   
   
2. Why do I get a list of the categories but no "hits" beside any of them?
   
   
3. Why did I get a search return with all 0's beside the category names?
   
   
4. Why is there a "2" (or any other number besides "1") shown beside the headline of an advertisement after a search?
   
   
5. Why are there different search pages for each category?
   
   
6. What do you mean by "transcribed text" and how do I search it in the Early Advertising Publications and the Advertising Cookbooks categories?
   
   
7. How do I search across all categories at the same time?
   
   
8. I've never searched this site before - are there special rules to follow in searching?
   
   
9. Who do I contact if my question about searching is not answered in this FAQ?

Your browser may not be able to process javascript (especially if you have a Lynx browser, or if you have an older browser such as Netscape version 2). The EAA General Search Page is available and does not use javascript. Also, you may browse each of the eleven categories separately on the Category Descriptions Page. The browse pages allow you to enter a specific term to search within that category.

If you see a list of the categories and there are no numbers listed on the left, check the search query that you entered. If the pull-down menu was on "Everything in EAA" or "ALL" and nothing is entered in the "contains" (or blank) areas, the default return for this is simply to list all the categories to allow further searching within them.

A search return with all 0's means that the search engine could not find what you requested. There may be a few reasons for this:

• If you entered a word in the "contains" (or blank) fields, the spelling of the word may not be reflected in the EAA database. Try a different spelling of the word, or type part of the word and then end it with *   (e.g. Koda* entered as a term for searching will result in returns that include Kodak).
  
  
• The Field, if one was chosen, may not contain that information (e.g. the term Kodak will not be found in the Date field). Check the Database Terms and Descriptions page for more clarification on what type of information is found in each of the Field areas.
  
  
• The EAA project - which is representative, not comprehensive - may indeed not contain any advertising items with the information you are seeking.

Searches result in a list of categories with a number beside them. Within each appropriate category, there is a list of the titles or headlines from the advertising items with a number listed on the left side. This number notes how many "hits" were found within an ad. If your complex search included two or more parts (e.g. date and company name) then both those fields count as a "hit" and the number "2" will be listed to the left of the headline. Keep this 'number inflation' in mind when there are large numbers beside the list of categories in the search results. These numbers may reflect double, triple, etc. the number of actual ads that meet the parameters of your search.

There is a wide range of physical material in the eleven categories of EAA. An advertising cookbook as a physical and intellectual item is quite different from a trade card or a broadside. Therefore, to allow more targeted searching for specific items, we created separate search pages for each category. With Hartman Center staff assistance, we identified database fields that would best meet the access needs of our users. There are some fields, such as headline/title, company, date of publication, etc. that are consistent across all categories. These are included in the Keyword pull-down menu on the EAA General Search Page. Most Illustration and Special Features are also found in all eleven categories. (For information on searching across all categories, please see Search FAQ #7 below.) The majority of categories, though, are so distinct that without the Category-Specific Complex Search pages a great deal of descriptive information would have been omitted from EAA. The category-specific search pages are accessible through the Category Descriptions Page and the EAA General Search Page.

For the Early Advertising Publications and the Advertising Cookbooks categories, we typed into a word document all of the information contained within the Title Page and the Table of Contents/Index pages for each book. No other pages from the books were transcribed. This text represents information "within" the book, as opposed to the database which contains information "about" the book. For example, bibliographic data and chapter titles will be found in the transcribed text for a specific book; chapter title names are not available in the database. This information "within" the book is provided for researchers to assess if the printed work contains useful information that may not be represented in teh images selected for the project.

To search the transcribed text, go to the EAA General Search Page. The first search box has as the default search option "Everything in Emergence of Advertising in America." With that selected, you will be able to search transcribed text as well as information on all categories for whatever keyword(s) you enter in the "Search for:" space.

Your search return will list three areas: Advertising Cookbooks, All Advertising Items, and Early Advertising Publications. The transcribed texts are found only in the Advertising Cookbooks and the Early Advertising Publications areas.

A number may appear in the search return beside the term "All Advertising Items." This area contains database information (i.e. descriptive information about an item) for all eleven categories in EAA, including the Cookbooks and Early Advertising Publications categories. By showing all three areas, this allows you to take advantage of additional search options.

You are able to search across all categories on the EAA General Search Page. In the first search box on that page, you are able to do a simple keyword search across all categories and all database fields, or you can limit your search to one database field only (e.g. if you are looking for advertising items from 1918 only, you would enter "1918" in the "Search for:" space and then choose "Date" in the "In:" pull down menu). To search for advertisements with particular types of illustrations or other special features across all categories, the second search box on the EAA General Search Page allows you to search on one feature at a time.

These two types of searches - Keyword and Illustration - can not be combined on this page. The Category-Specific Complex Search Pages allow these complex ("boolean") searches, one category at a time.

The method to perform simple searches on this site are similar to those you would employ in using a web search engine. There are helpful hints on searching at the bottom of each search page, as the General Search Page and the Category-Specific Complex Search Pages employ slightly different strategies.

In general, some searching tips to remember include:

• The information on these pages is not case sensitive, so searching for lillie langtry will give you the same results as searching for Lillie Langtry.
  
  
• The asterisk * is treated as a wildcard. You can use it in words or dates. If you are unsure of how to spell tobacco, you can enter tobac* as a search term. The returns will include any word that begins with tobac. Dates are the same way. If you want to find all the ads from the 1910s, you would type in 191*.
  
  The asterisk is a powerful tool. If a term with a wildcard is too broad (e.g. looking for to*) your search will be extremely slow, and the returns will most likely not be of much assistance. If you aren't sure of what exactly you want to find, browsing the ads may give you a better idea of what is available.

If your question is not answered on this page or in the Help and Examples section of the EAA General Search Page or the Category-Specific Complex Search Pages, please email the Hartman Center Reference Archivist at hartman-center@duke.edu.