We have resumed most of our activities. However, given the situation regarding COVID-19, we will assess any new requests based on their urgency and the date of receipt so that we can provide services to our clients in a fair manner. Additionally, response times may be delayed.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding. We encourage you to check our site frequently for the latest updates to our services.
Search tips
- Search
- Advanced search
- Extended search with *
- Search on the records of a regional network
- Sort the results
- Display results
- Search with accents and capital letters
Search
Enter a term in the search box.
For example:
- Riopelle
- chair
Click on the "Search" button.
Search "all words", "any word"
If the term contains more than one word, you must specify whether you want to find all the records that contain one or the other of the words by choosing the "Any word" radio button, or only the records that contain all the words by choosing the "All words" radio button.
Note: there is no way to search for an exact phrase such as "high chair".
For example:
- "high chair" with the selection "All words", will find all records that contain the word "chair" AND the word "high"
- "high chair" with the "Any word" selection, will find all records that contain the word "chair" OR the word "high"
Advanced search
Advanced search allows you to combine multiple search criteria in the same search. Select the field or group of fields to search and enter the keyword or phrase you want to find. Add as many search lines as you need to refine your search using the "Add criteria line" button. To delete a criteria line, simply select the x under "Delete ".
For example:
- Select "All fields for What" and enter the keyword "house" to find all the records that contain this term in any of the fields grouped under this criterion.
- Select the "Artist/Maker" field in the "All fields for Who" group and enter the name "Riopelle" in the search box. Add a criteria line, choose the AND operator, select the "Institution" field in the "All fields for Where" group and enter "National Gallery of Canada" in the search box to find all the works from Riopelle in this museum.
Field groupings
Fields are grouped into five question groups: what, where, who, when and how. Thus doing a search with "Ottawa" in "---- All fields for Where ----" is the equivalent of a search in the field "Institution" OR in the fields "Place of origin" OR in the fields "Place of use".
Some of these fields also include other fields; thus "Place of origin" includes Origin-Continent, Origin-Country, Origin-Province, Origin-District and Origin-Municipality. The list below shows the fields in each group under each question .
| Filter | Fields |
|---|---|
| ----- All fields for What ----- | |
| Accession Number | Accession Number |
| Object Name | Object Name, Object Type and Alternate Object Name |
| Classification | Classification, Group, Category and Sub-Category |
| Title | Title |
| Description | Description |
| History of Use | History of Use |
| Subject/Image | Subject/Image |
| Cultural Context | Cultural Context |
| ----- All fields for Where ----- | |
| Institution | Institution |
| Place of Origin | Origin-Continent, Origin-Country, Origin-Province, Origin-District and Origin-Municipality |
| Place of Use | Use-Continent, Use-Country, Use-Province, Use-Municipality and Institution Province |
| ----- All fields for Who ----- | |
| Artist/Maker | Artist, Maker or Designer and Other Artist |
| Manufacturer | Manufacturer |
| Merchant | Merchant |
| Cultural Context | Cultural Context |
| Provenance | Provenance |
| ----- All fields for When ----- | |
| Production Date | Begin Date and End Date |
| Period | Period |
| School/Style | School/Style |
| ----- All fields for How ----- | |
| School/Style | School/Style |
| Technique | Technique |
| Material | Material |
| Medium | Medium |
| Support | Support |
Search by words with AND / OR or by exact phrase
Each field in the advanced search performs an exact phrase search by default. Thus, if you type in the field "---- All fields for What ---", the key phrase "high chair", you will retrieve 103 records that contain the exact phrase "high chair".
To find all records that contain the words "chair" and "high", add in the field "---- All fields for What ---", the keyword "chair", add a criteria line with the "AND" operator, the "---- All fields for What ---" field and the "high" keyword. This will retrieve 780 records containing both the word "chair" and the word "high".
To find all records that contain the word "chair" or the word "high", you must enter the field "---- All fields for What ---", the keyword "chair", add a criteria line with the "OR" operator, the "---- All fields for What ---" field and the "high" keyword. This will retrieve 32,591 records containing either the word "chair" or the word "high".
Extended search with *
The search can also be done on the truncated root of a term followed or preceded by an asterisk (*).
For example:
- wat* to search for all watches, watercolours, waterers
- *portrait to find all portraits and self-portraits
- *polo to find polo and waterpolo but not apology.
- *polo* to find polo, waterpolo and apology.
Search on the records of a regional network
To limit your searches to records contributed by members of a regional network, simply select the network name from the drop-down menu.
For example:
- Info-Muse (users of the Info-Muse Network of the Société des musées du Québec)
- Novamuse (contributors to Novamuse Network in Nova Scotia)
Sort the results
You can sort the results by selecting the field on which to sort. Open the drop-down menu in the "Select a sort option" box, select a field and press the "Go" button. The records will be presented in the alphabetical order of the terms contained in this field. Records with no value for the chosen sort field are put at the end of the list.
Display results
The search results will be displayed as a list by default. Using the two icons in the upper right-hand corner of the search results, you can choose between displaying the results as a list or a grid view. If you want to obtain only records which include images, click the box "Only records with images" in the search criteria area
Search with accents and capital letters
Diacritic and uppercase characters are ignored by the search. Thus searching for "École", "école", "ecole" or "ECOLE" gives the same result.
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To suggest edits or updates to this page, please contact the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) directly.