Collection Search Instructions

How to find an object in the ANS database.

Accession Number

If you know the ANS’ unique accession number for the object click the ‘Search’ button in the toolbar above. On the new page that opens, select ‘Accession number’ on the drop-down menu and enter the accession in the following format: YYYY.nnn.nnn.

Free Text Searching

To conduct a free text search click the ‘Search’ button in the toolbar above. On the new page that opens, select ‘Keyword’ on the drop-down menu and enter the text for which you wish to search.

Faceted Searching

To the right of these instructions is a list of facets by which the collection may be searched or browsed. Click on a facet and a list of all values held in the database will appear as a scroll-down list. Select the term for which you wish to search and check the box next to it. You may choose multiple terms within any facet. For example, if you want to browse the coins of two different mints, find their names in the ‘Mint’ facet and check the boxes next to both.

Then click the ‘Search the Department’ button beneath the facet list.

Building a search

You may build a complex search by choosing search terms under different facets. When you have finished selecting the terms under one facet, open the other facet(s) by which you want to search and select the relevant terms there too. For example if w at to find coins struck at a mint in the 17th century, open the ‘Mint’ facet and check the appropriate mint, then open the ‘Century’ facet and check ‘17th century’.

Then click the ‘Search the Department’ button beneath the facet list.

Images

If you want to restrict your search to objects with images available in the database, check the ‘Has images’ box beneath the facets list before clicking the ‘Search’ button.