The following search tips may help you perform a successful search. Two levels of searching are available - a General search box where you can type any word or words and the site will find image records containing this term; and an Advanced image search that allows more specific searching on the fields we use to categorize objects from our collections.

GENERAL SEARCH
Type a term into the Search box and click the 'search' button. Image records containing this exact term will be displayed. You can use an asterisk with the search term to help you find images whose description starts with, ends with or includes that term. For example, searching for the word hill will find images with the word hill somewhere in the record. However, searching for hill* will find records with the words hill, hills, hillside and hilly included, while adding asterisks before and after - for example, *hill* - will find hill, hills, hillside, hilly and Achilles. Always double check for misspellings and typing errors.

More than one term can be entered in the General search box, and image records containing all the terms will be retrieved. You can use particular forms of punctuation, for example, "John the Baptist" will retrieve image records matching the exact phrase. Use the operator OR (this must be in upper-case) to broaden the results. For example: hill tree will retrieve image records only containing both these words; hill OR tree will retrieve image records containing either hill or tree, or both.

ADVANCED IMAGE SEARCH
The Advanced image search is a more focused search, helping you to search for words in particular fields of the database. You can enter search terms into more than one field. Do make sure you use the 'Clear form' button before you run a new search.

Accession Number
If you know the museum or library accession number, for example from a label in the museum, you can enter this in the Accession number field. Accession numbers have different formats - where they have more than one part, use full stops as separators, for example OG.1955.119. You must enter the complete number to retrieve the image record. If you want to retrieve all accession numbers starting with, for example, PC, use the General search box instead (entering PC*), as the Advanced search will only retrieve the exact number.

Category
This enables you to limit your search for images to a particular collection, subject or discipline within the museum or library collections. Use the dropdown list to select the category.

Maker of the objects
All the makers are displayed in a dropdown list. Click on the maker's name to add it to your search. Maker can be the person who, or organization which, made or designed the objects depicted in the images.

Type
This identifies what kind of object is shown in the image, for example, a painting, chair, book, print, vase, carpet.

Title
You can use this field to search for particular names given to a work, such as a painting's title, and generally refers to the subject shown. You can enter one or more words; for example, entering the word loch in the Title field will retrieve all images for any loch. Entering Loch Lomond will retrieve only images with the title Loch Lomond.

Place
You can use this field to find images associated with a particular place. This may be the place where the object in the image was made, used, excavated, depicts, or is associated with in some way. A country, city, district or town may be entered as one or more terms. If more than one place is entered in this field, only records with both places will be retrieved. For example, entering Scotland Glencoe will only find records with both terms. Entering Glencoe Paisley will not find any records - you should run this as two separate searches.

Materials
This allows you to search for images of objects made of a particular material, for example, 'oil on canvas' will retrieve images of paintings in oil, while 'gold' will retrieve images of objects made of gold.

Culture/Painting school
You can use this to search for images of objects associated with particular cultures or painting schools in the collections. For example, entering 'French' will find images of objects from the French school, while entering 'American' will retrieve images of objects from American culture, including Native North American cultures.

Date
Use the ‘from’ and ‘to’ date fields to search for images of objects in our collection made on or between specific dates. You can enter just a year, for example 1895 to 1920, or a full date.

Original filename
If you know the original file name for the image itself, enter this here to retrieve this image record.

Further assistance
Please do contact us by phone or email should you have any difficulties in finding the image you require.
Glasgow Life Photo Library
Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
200 Woodhead Road
South Nitshill
Glasgow G53 7NN
Scotland, United Kingdom

Phone +44 (0) 141 276 9452

Email: Photolibraryenquiries@glasgowlife.org.uk