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The Basic KSA Digital Library Search

To search the KSA Digital Library using the Basic Search, type one or more descriptive words into the search box and click the 'Search' button or hit "Enter'. The search will return results that include all of your search terms. To refine or narrow your search, simply add more words to the search terms you have already entered. Your new query will return a smaller subset of images. If your query returned too few images, you may want to choose different keywords or try the browse categories to navigate the collection.

To take advantage of the Search, keep these items in mind:

• It searches the Titles, Descriptions, Subject/Object names (type of work), Organization names, Architects/Designers names, Construction materials, and Geographic location names.
• It automatically adds an "and" between words in a query. Therefore, it is not necessary to include "and" between search terms.
• It ignores common words like "a", "and", "is", or "the".
• It enables stemming. Simply add an "*" after the word to return results with that word stem. This may be helpful if you are unsure of a word ending or the word could have multiple endings. For example: "colos*" would return colossal and colossus
• It is not case sensitive. Therefore, "Parks" and "parks" will return the same results.
• It allows phrase searching, which means putting quotation marks around two or more words. For example, the search "hall of mirrors" will return results containing that exact phrase.
• It does not understand special characters. For example, a search for "allées" will return zero results, because the "é" is interpreted as a symbol rather than an "e". To obtain relevant results, simply enter search terms without using special characters. For example: use "allees" instead of "allées".

Browsing the KSA Digital Library

To browse the KSA Digital Library, click on the categories to the right of the search box: Periods, Subject/Objects (types of work), Architects/Designers (individual creators), Architectural, Design, and other Organizations (group/organization creators), Geographic Locations, Spatial Organization, Architectural/Design Styles, Systems or System Elements, and Materials. When you click on the category, you will be taken to an intermediary page with further browsing categories. You may drill down the the smallest term in a browse or go to any of the larger terms by clicking the highlighted number next to the term. This number represents the number of items in the KSA Digital Library related to that term.