Search Tips and Tools

Searching the Digital Archive

The search bar at the top of the screen searches for keywords; searching a term will bring you any result that has that term in it. This includes program titles and works as well as some of the text in the programs themselves.

Quotation marks let you search a specific phrase. If you only want to see items about Symphony Hall, search for “Symphony Hall.” Searching for Symphony Hall without quotes will bring you any result that has the word Symphony or the word Hall.

Programs have been tagged with the major composers that appear in them as well as with some of the types of music that appear in them. These tags will help you narrow your search in two ways: by filtering or by using facets.

You can filter your searches using the Filter button next to the search bar. Click this button and select what you would like to filter by from the drop-down menu: concert title, composer, or artist/guest artist. Enter the term you wish to filter by, then click the Add button. To remove the filter from your search, go over to the left side of the page , and click the red X next to it to remove it. The page will update automatically. Note: you can use the filter to search a phrase in quotes, but if you filter by a single word in quotes, you will receive no results.

You can also use the search facets on the left side of the search results page. Checking one or more of the boxes will narrow down the results by the composers tagged or the types of music tagged. If you want to broaden your results again, simply unclick the facet option. The page will update automatically.

When using the facets, the Subject facet narrows down by type of music. The Contributor facet narrows down by composer.

Browsing the Digital Archive

If you wish to search for a program by its date, browsing will be your best option; all our programs are organized into folders by date.

You may browse through the full collection of programs by clicking the “Start Browsing the Collection” button near the top left of the page. From there, click through the nested folders to find the programs; they have been organized into folders. Up to 1965, the programs have been grouped into folders in 50-year increments. Starting with the 1965-1966 season, each season has its own folder with all the programs we have for that season.

When viewing a specific folder, a second search bar will appear lower down on the page, below the folder title and “sort by” drop-down menu. You can use this second search bar to search keywords within that specific folder. For instance, if you were looking at the folder for the 1967-1968 season, using this second search bar would retrieve only results found in that season’s folder.

If at any point you want to return to where you started, you can click on the “Start Browsing the Collection” button to return to the collection home page.

Remember:

To return to the welcome page, simply click the Handel and Haydn Society logo in the top left of the page.