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Catalog & Research Guide :: Orbis Search Tips
Initially, you may wish to use "keyword searches" to locate the Archive's materials in Orbis. A keyword search will retrieve any catalog record which contains the specified search terms. This form of searching is particularly powerful because you can combine several keywords in a single search. Click on "Long view" once the testimony record is on screen in order to read the testimony summaries. The following example retrieves materials which refer to Paris and the Drancy transit camp:
keywords: Paris
and Drancy
This search retrieves all Yale Library materials which meet the specified
criteria. To limit your keyword search to the Archive's testimonies, add
the qualifier "HVT" (for Holocaust Video Testimony) to your
searches, as in:
keywords: Athens
and children and HVT
More complicated searches are also possible. The following example retrieves
testimonies which refer to Auschwitz, and then either to Frankfurt or
Munich:
keywords: Auschwitz
and (Munich or Frankfurt) and HVT
One technique for broadening a search is to "truncate" keywords
using the "?" symbol. The truncated keyword "Medic?"
will return records containing the words "medic", "medical",
or "medicine." Similarly, the following example returns records
including the terms "poet," "poetry," "poets,"
"poem," or "poems." ("Poe?" is too short
to serve as a valid truncated keyword).
keywords: (poem?
or poet?) and HVT
You do not need to include diacritics in your search terms:
keywords: "Lodz
ghetto" and "Jewish councils" and HVT
Keyword searches will sometimes return "false hits"; that is,
catalog records which include all the keywords requested but which are
not actually relevant. The above search returns several testimonies which
describe the role of the Judenrat in the Lodz ghetto; it also locates
a testimony which describes the Jewish council of the Zdunska Wola ghetto,
as well as transfer to the Lodz ghetto. Such "false hits" can
be eliminated by carefully reading the testimony summaries included in
each catalog record.
You can limit searches to testimonies recorded in a particular language.
On the Orbis search page there is an option called "More Limits"
(lower right hand corner). This option allow for searching limited on
language, collection, and other parameters.
If keyword searches produce no results, you may wish to try a subject
search. Orbis may be able to suggest a search term if your subject term
does not comply with the standard cataloging vocabulary.
Please see the Tutorials section of this guide for more detailed instructions on searching Orbis for Video Archive testimonies.
Additional information about Orbis (and the different interfaces) is
available from the Guide
to Orbis (part of the Yale
University Library Research Workstation), and in the Orbis help files.
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