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Kingsland Road, London, E2 8EA; Tel: 020 7739 9893
To search the collections simply type one or more words in the search box and click the button marked Search. Any records that match all the words that you entered will be retrieved, and will be displayed as a series of thumbnail images. For example, searching for tea cup will find all the records that contain both tea AND cup.
You can also find records that match any one or more of the words you entered by using the operator OR. For example, searching for tea or cup will find any records that contain either tea or cup. You can search for an exact phrase by placing it inside double inverted commas. For example, searching for "tea cup" will return only those records that contain the phrase tea cup. If you want to search for similar words, or are unsure of the exact spelling of a word, you can use an asterisk (*) to perform a wildcard search. For example, wood* will find records containing the word wood and also any other word beginning with wood, such as wooden. You can also exclude records that contain a particular word by using the operator NOT. For example, searching for painting not watercolour will find records that contain painting but not watercolour.
In the Advanced Search screen you can search for words or names in particular fields of the database. For example, searching for Day in the name field will find records associated with a person or institution called Day, but not records that simply contain the word day elsewhere. You can enter search terms into more than one field. If you do this only those records that match all your terms will be found.
Some of the Advanced Search fields (Artist/Designer, Material/technique and Place) are linked to terminology hierarchies. This means that you may sometimes find that your search term does not actually appear in all of the records in your results. For example, if you search on Heal’s in Artist/designer/maker/retailer records containing the name Heal and Son Ltd will be found or if you search on wood under Material/technique you will also find records containing the names of specific woods, such as oak or walnut.
Use Search by theme (situated towards the bottom of the Advanced Search page) to explore subjects related to the history of the home. Click on the arrow next to one of the theme headings to see more specific themes within that area. Check the tick box next to the theme you are interested in and click the search button. If you select more than one theme, all of the records linked to any of the themes you have chosen will be found.
Combined searching on themes and other advanced search fields is also possible. Such searches will find only records that match your theme (or themes) and all of the other search terms you have entered.
If your search is returning too many records, try using more search terms, or the Advanced Search to add more criteria to your search and refine the results. If your search is returning too few records, try using fewer search terms and searching again. If you are using the advanced search try removing one or more of the criteria from the fields. If you are having problems finding records associated with a particular person, try entering the person's surname only and searching again.
Not every object the Geffrye Museum owns is currently available in Search the Collections, we are continuing to add as many records of items in our collection as we can. If you have tried following the Search Tips above and you still cannot find the object you are looking for then it is likely that it is not available online at this time.
