Topic: Finding Things
Topic type:
A look at the different ways of finding things in the MemoryBank.
Introduction
There are a number of different ways to find material in the MemoryBank's database. You can find things by discovery, or you can search for specific material.
The homepage provides these ways to discover material:
- browse
- featured topics
- contents by type
- slideshow
- latest 5 topics
You can also find material by
- keyword search
- following hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are bits of highlighted and underlined text, or they could be an image that cause the cursor to change to a hand when you move your cursor over it. Every page will have a number of hyperlinks and they are the way to move around this kete database.
Browse
By clicking on the browse button from the menu in the top right hand corner of the screen, you can see the entire contents of the database, with each item type displaying on a seperate tab. To view images only, click on the second tab , video clips on the 4th tab etc.
You can vary how many records display per page by clicking on 5, 10, 20 or 50 records per page, from the menu at the bottom right of the screen. This makes it a pretty quick task to scan a few hundred items in a few minutes.
Browsing is a really easy way to track of new additions to the database; the lists are sorted with the newest or edited ones displaying first.
Featured Topics
These are a selection of topics selected as being of particular interest. They might be new, or interesting, or demonstrate a really exciting use of the Kete Text editor (more on this later!). You can view the featured topic by clicking on the image or the title. Once you are at the topic page you can dig deeper by clicking on any of the links on the page.
Contents by Type
The contents of the MemoryBank database are listed here, sorted by item type. It is just another way of browsing really, just showing on the homepage. Just click on an item type link.
Slideshow
The sidebar has a continuous slideshow of random images from the database. They change every 20 seconds but if one catches your eye you can click on the image to go to the detailed screen. You can advance through to the next image by clicking on next.
Latest 5 Topics
The newest 5 topics to be added to the MemoryBank database display on the bottom left portion of the homepage. Just click on the hotlinked title to go to the full record.
Keyword Searching
The MemoryBank is searched by typing a few words in the keyword search box; 1 - 3 words are usually enough. To the search the whole database make sure you do this from the homepage search box, or after clicking o the search link from the top right menu.
You can truncate a word if you are not sure of the spelling or want to include variants on a word; for instance you could enter 'peters' if you are not sure whether a name is spelt 'Petersen' or 'Peterson'.
The MemoryBank will accept simple boolean operators. This means you can search on a phrase if you place it between quote marks. For example a search on 'Vulcan Hotel' will only produce results that contain those two words together in a phrase, and leave out all the records containing both of these words but not sitting beside each other eg ä Topic containing: 'the Vulcan is a hotel at St Bathans'. You can also use and and or and not to join phrases together.
Kete uses fuzzy searching. This means that if you misspell a word it will try and find something close. For instance a search on 'polo' will also bring up results for 'pole' because we only had 1 result for 'polo' and you may have meant 'pole'.
View Search Results
Search results are sorted by item or file type, with each item type on its own 'tab'. Tabs in the MemoryBank work like tabbed divider pages in a ringbinder, separating items into different catageories
- images or photographs
- audio clips
- video clips
- weblinks or urls
- documents
- discussion comments
To view the results, click on the tab of the item type you want to look at. The number on the tab shows how many records there are of each type.
Each item type will display a list of results which matched your search terms. To view a particular record, click on anything which is a hyperlink. Clicking on a hyperlink will take you to the full record of the particular item.
By default, the search results display 5 records per page. To view the next 'page' click on the next link on the right hand side of the screen (about 1/2 way down). You can also use the previous link to move backwards and forwards.
You can change the number of records that display per page by selecting a 10, 20 or 50 from the menu at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
JMcClintock
said St Bathans (Ballarat / Vulcan Hotel)
Open question to anyone with the background. My Grandfather was the Prop of the Hotel when it was known as the Ballarat Hotel. I would like to know the chronological order of the owners of the hotel and the corresponding dates. I have Hangers Vulcan 1868 1883. Ballarat Hotel R J McClintock c1900's (not specific). Thanks for any assistance.
Tags: St Bathans, Hotels, Ballarat, Vulcan