There are many ways in which the CD can help you find what you want - not all of them expected. Search results appear virtually instantaneously, because every individual word, number, abbreviation, etc., has been indexed. Even if you are an experienced computer user, it is recommended that you look through these notes (which occupy the equivalent of four typed pages). This text may be printed off and used by an individual owner of the CD, or by a user in a library. For more extensive information, see ‘Searching The British Library Map Catalogue on CD-ROM’, a 61-page guide that comes with the CD.

Getting Started	Types of Search
Help	Tips and Techniques
Navigation

Getting Started

Mouse. Move the mouse pointer to the relevant part of the screen, then click on the left-hand button. You will be using the mouse for everything except typing in search words.

Main Screen. If you are at the screen with the map background, click on ‘Start’.

Search Screen. You start from the ‘Search Screen’, whose centre is white with horizontal lines. There should be no lettering in the white boxes. If there is, click on the blue ‘Clear Search’ label to remove a previous user’s search.

Help

Demonstration. You may find it helpful to experiment first with the demonstration screen (click on the ‘Search Help’ button to the right). Click on the various elements in turn (whenever you see a hand symbol) and an explanation will pop up.

On-screen Help. Two sorts of Help are available on the Search Screen, in the form of tips:

• ‘Tool Tips’. These yellow messages change as you move around the Search Screen. Click on ‘Tips ON’ to turn them off.
• Information Bar (along the bottom left). These messages change as you move the mouse pointer.

There is a wide range of Help available on the CD. You are offered four alternative routes to it:

1. ‘Basic Searching’ [see ‘Demonstration’ above].
2. From where you are. Press the F1 key and you will get Help about the particular search field you have clicked on or about the screen or window you are in.
3. Via the Contents screen. Click on Help (top of the screen) then ‘Contents’. You can click on any of the sub-headings under which the Help file is organised.
4. Via the Index. Click on Help (top of the screen) then ‘Search’. This leads you into a comprehensive index to the Help file. Start typing a query where the cursor is flashing, double-click on the relevant term, then click ‘Go To’.

Navigation

How to search. There are two ways to search:-

• Typing. Click on the white box next to your chosen search term, then type in. You can use more than one box. Ignore capital letters and accents.
• Indexes. There are indexes for each specific search (‘field’) and an index for the entire catalogue (under ‘Whole Record’). Click on the grey label button for your chosen search term and go into the Index(es) for that field. There will often be a choice of single Words or complete Lines. Click on the one you want and it will appear in front of the other, and in bold. Then start typing ahead and you are taken to the relevant part of the index. Double-click on the one(s) you want, then click on the Add Selections to Search Screen button.

Hits. The relevant entries for each search appear to the right. The total ‘hits’, i.e. the number of records that match all your criteria, appear at the bottom.

Display. You have two options (click on the buttons top right to select or change the Display option):

• List Display, which shows several, partial records at once. The grey highlighted record is the operative one and described as, e.g., Record 17 of 23.
• Full Display, which shows a single, complete record. Full Display also includes subsequent editions (see ‘Parent’ and ‘Child’ records below).

To move between or within records, use the ‘scroll bar’ to the right. Use the up/down arrows to move one element at a time; click above/below the square button to move a screen at a time; drag the square button to make bigger movements; use Home/End to go to the beginning/end of List Display.

‘Parent’ and ‘Child’ records. If there are subsequent editions (Child records), the List Display will show how many there are, e.g. "Subs: 4". Their details will appear on the Full Display beneath the description of the earliest edition (Parent record). Click on the horizontal dividing line and drag it up to give more space to the Child records. You can search on elements in a Child record, e.g. its date. There are about 18,000 subsequent edition records.

Sorting. In List Display select ‘Sort’ and then the relevant option. You need to sort a geographical search on Place/Area Covered to bring together the separate sequences of the four source catalogues. Note that the Year option will sort on the date of the first edition, even if the record was selected because of a subsequent edition.

Clear Search. Return to the Search Screen (button near the top) and click on ‘Clear Search’ to prepare for a new search. Click on ‘Search History’ to retrieve and then reinsert an earlier search. Click again on ‘Search History’ to close its window.

Types of Search

Date. To restrict to material pre/post a certain date, or for date-ranging, look at the instructions in the bottom left of the Search Screen, first placing your mouse cursor over ‘Year’. Some of the earliest records omit a publication date. If you want everything that is, or might be, pre-1600, enter: <1600 OR NONE

Geographical. There are two possible routes:

• ‘Place/Area Covered’. Use the index if you are not sure of the name. That way you will often see variant spellings and can select those as well.
• ‘Place/Sub-regions’. If you want everything that falls within a given area, click instead on ‘Place/Sub-regions’. Then follow the hierarchy from continent to country to region. You can continue down whenever you see >. Right-click when you arrive at what you want, e.g. Scotland or California.

Name. For pre-1975 material, try entering the surname into ‘Whole Record’ (bottom of the screen) [see ‘Tips and Techniques' below]. That way you may pick up names from titles, imprints and cataloguers' notes. For example, under ‘Name/Publisher’, Speed* produces 48 hits for John Speed; under ‘Whole Record’, the figure is 259.

Place or country of publication. This allows you to retrieve material recorded as being published in either a town, e.g. New York, or a country, e.g. United States (which will include all the New York entries).

Scale. The Representative Fraction (e.g. 1:15,000) was generally not recorded for printed maps until about 1940. The scale statements of manuscript maps were included, however, in the 1844-61 catalogue. Most of these statements have been translated into an RF. You can select by scale and scale-range but remember that there will be limited retrieval for printed maps.

Subject. Start by finding the relevant term in the Subject index. For best results, type this term (or its significant word) into Whole Record along with relevant title words (linked by OR) [see ‘logical connectors’ below]. NB. If you are using Whole Record you need to delete the entry under ‘Subject’.

Tips and Techniques

Whole Record. The Whole Record search looks at every single word, number, abbreviation, acronym, etc. in the whole database (190,000 main records). Some information can be retrieved here only, e.g. ‘Notes’ (cataloguers’ comments). Since the Whole Record will also pick up the formal headings supplied by cataloguers (Place/Area Covered, Name, Subject, Format) it is recommended that this option is used for most searches [for pre-1975 records]. Click on ‘Whole Record’ and press the F1 key for guidance on special searches, e.g. facsimiles, manuscript maps, series mapping, topographical views.

Logical connectors. You have three options:

• AND - when you want both terms, e.g. road AND atlas
• OR - for acceptable alternatives, e.g. medieval OR mediaeval
• NOT - to refine or exclude irrelevancies, e.g. overton NOT john [if you want Henry, Hen. H. etc.]. For complex search forms, use brackets, e.g. overton NOT (john OR j OR i OR io)

Truncation. Always consider using this. Put * after the stem to get any word that starts thus, e.g. geolog* (for various language equivalents). Use the Whole Record index to spot the possibilities beforehand. There are 100 for geolog* !

Keep it simple! Enter as little as possible, e.g. a surname, or two or more distinctive words, preferably from different fields, say, an author surname and a title-word. If what you enter is not exactly matched in the record you will retrieve nothing. If you receive zero hits for a single field you will receive zero hits in total.

Accept irrelevant hits. To achieve all you want, you must accept some you do not want.

NB. This is a retroconversion. It allows new forms of access to essentially unchanged records, some of which date back to the early 19th century. The CD comprises the complete sequence of the published and automated catalogues of printed maps as well as the 3-volume Catalogue of Manuscript Maps (1844-61). The following are not included:

• manuscript maps acquired since about 1840 [however, unpublished indexes to MS maps are available in the British Library]. See also the British Library's Manuscripts Catalogue
• Oriental and India Office Collections [later 'Asian and African Studies'] material
• some atlases and many books containing maps held in the general library [these may be available via the British Library Public Catalogue (BLPC)]

There is a review by Liz Sagues in Mercator's World, 5:2 (2000).