This criterion will find texts of a particular type or function.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any type’.

The list covers a very wide range of types of text, ranging from individual articles and items of correspondence, through lecture scripts, songs and books, to websites and online archives.

Some items in the list will find thousands of texts, others only a few. The list of text types will be gradually refined – at present there are some inconsistencies because the list was compiled from different research resources which were created for different reasons.

This criterion will find all texts whose title and/or subtitle contain a given word or phrase.

Type the text you want to find into the box. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box empty.

This search is most useful when you already know the title of the text you are looking for.

It can also be used to find texts relating to a given subject, but not all texts on a subject have that information in the title. For example, a search for ‘America’ would not find texts about the USA whose title only contains ‘United States’.

Notes:

• The search will find exactly the group of characters you enter, including any spaces or punctuation marks.
• Try to think of a distinctive word or phrase from the title, but be prepared for unexpected results. For example, if you want to find texts with Thames in the title, a search for ‘tham’ will find them – but it will also find Grantham, Chatham Pexton and so on.
• Keep your search text as short as you can – as you enter more, your search becomes more specific and you are less likely to find results.
• Avoid starting with words like ‘the’, ‘a’ etc. – for example a search for ‘The three bears’ would find the set The tale of the three bears but not The three bears. This is because an article at the start of a title is treated as a separate data field from the main title (to allow correct alphabetical sorting).

This criterion will find all texts recorded as being associated with a specific person.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any person’.

The most common, and possibly most important, connection between a person and a text is author, but there are many other possible connections including editor, translator, contributor, composer, designer, lyricist and so on.

Individual people may be connected with several different texts, and a given text may have many several associated people. Where relevant, a person may be recorded with more than one association with the same text (for example a songwriter could be both lyricist and composer of a song).

Notes:

• The drop-down list only shows those people already known to be connected to texts with Lucerna records.
• In some cases the names of people with connections to a given text are simply unknown and will never be identified – in this case Lucerna records show no author, rather than using ‘Anon.’ or similar.
• In some cases the only record of a person’s connection to a text may be from a source other than the text itself – for example a story may not carry its author’s name (or may be credited ‘by the author of ... ’), but that person can be identified from a library catalogue record or another text.

This criterion will find all texts recorded as having been published by a chosen organisation.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any publisher’.

In some cases, this information is not known for certain or has not been recorded, so this search will not necessarily find a complete record of everything published by a selected organisation.

The publisher is not recorded for items which appear in another text (for example, articles in a periodical or slide readings gathered into a compilation booklet), though in those examples the publisher would be recorded for the larger publication if known.

You might also want to search by the next criterion, Other associated organisation, which finds texts by their printers, distributors or other organisations identified on the text. A few organisations may appear in both lists.

This criterion will find all texts recorded as having some connection with a chosen organisation apart from ‘publisher’.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any organisation’.

Possible connections include printer, distributor, author and contributor (the last two in situations where an organisation is credited as a ‘corporate author’).

In many cases, this information is not known for certain or has not been recorded, so this search will not necessarily find a complete record of everything associated with a selected organisation.

Associated organisations are not recorded for items which appear within another text (for example, articles in a periodical, or slide readings gathered into a compilation booklet), though in those examples they would be recorded for the larger publication if known.

You might also want to search by the previous criterion, Publisher, which finds texts by their publishers where identified on the text. A few organisations may appear in both lists.

This criterion will find texts known to have been published in a specific year (or range of years).

Choose one or more years from the drop-down lists as appropriate. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave both boxes showing ‘any date’.

In many cases, this information is not known for certain or has not been recorded.

This search can be useful for getting a sample of items from a given period, but relatively few texts have definite publication dates and the results should not be taken as a complete record of everything from the year(s) you enter.

Notes:

• The years in the drop-down lists are just those for which items have been recorded, not a complete list of all possible years.
• To find items first published in a specific year, choose the same year from both lists.
• To find items first published in or after a specific year, choose a year from the first list but leave the second box showing ‘any date’.
• To find items first published in or before a specific year, leave the first box showing ‘any date’ but choose a year from the second list.
• To find items first published at any time in a range of years, choose different years from both lists.

This criterion will find all texts recorded as part of an identified series.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any series’.

Some publishers produced texts in series of related items, brought together under a wider title – for example the series of lantern reading compilations English rhymes for German jokes or Short lantern readings.

Series titles may have been used at the time of publication, but may also have been applied by later researchers as a way of gathering items that are clearly related to each other.

Notes:

• The drop-down list only shows those series for which texts are already listed in Lucerna, not a complete list of all series that were ever produced.
• Texts can appear as members of more than one series – for example a publisher might use one series name, while a dealer could have grouped the same items with others under a different name.

This criterion will find all texts for which an online copy is known to exist.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘show all texts’.

Where an online digital copy of a text is known to exist, and has been linked from Lucerna, this criterion will allow you to find the Lucerna records from which it has been linked. It is probably best to use it in conjunction with other criteria, since the number of online copies is becoming quite large.

Notes:

• Not all existing online copies, which of course are increasing rapidly, have yet been linked from Lucerna. If you know of online copies that we have not yet linked to, please Contact us to let us know.
• Many online copies are freely available, but some are not – the fact that a text has been linked from Lucerna just tells you that it exists and does not necessarily guarantee you access to it. In some cases (for example the Magic Lantern Society’s library of copies of slide readings) you may have to contact the owner of the digital copy to ask for access or a copy of the text; in other cases access may be part of a paid-for subscription service.

This option controls how the results of your search will be displayed.

Choose an option from the drop-down list.

By default, the search will show the texts it finds in alphabetical order of their titles. If that’s OK, leave the list box showing ‘title (alphabetical)’.

The other options are:

• date of publication – list the texts in ascending order of their date of publication. However relatively few texts are known to have a definite date, so this may be a less useful option.
• series order (if any) – where texts have been identified as members of a series, list them in order of any serial numbers or other indicators within that series. This is probably only useful if you have also selected a value under the Series title criterion as well.