Home > Using The Catalogue

How to use the catalogue

The CALM database contains some personal data. We have taken all reasonable care to ensure that we operate within the provisions of data protection legislation. If you believe that any of the data in this database causes or is likely to cause substantial damage or distress to you or any other living person, please contact us with specific details

To Search

First, select the repository you wish to search, by selecting from the main screen. This will take you to the search page.

Type in any text in the first box, then click on ‘Search’, or press Enter. You can also search by date, title, or reference number.

If there is more than one word you wish to search for, separate the terms by a space, and select the ‘And’ or ‘Or’ options at the side. In ‘Field options’, you can find records which match any or all of the search fields. Please bear in mind that the catalogue may take a few moments to load at peak times.

Advanced tips

A wildcard (*) can be used to allow for uncertainty. For instance, searching on *men will find records containing ‘bedesmen’ and ‘craftsmen’ as well as ‘policewomen’. Likewise, ford* will find records containing both ‘Forde’ and ‘Fordwich’. The database is not case-sensitive.

Modification of the hitlist is possible by using ‘Widen’, ‘Narrow’ and ‘Exclude’.

Organising your results

The results page lists the records which match your search. This shows the document reference number, title and date. They are listed in order of archive reference number by default. You can click on ‘Title’ or ‘Date’ to organise the records differently by these fields respectively. Click on the number at the far left of the page to see further details about a specific record.

The individual record page provides more detailed information about the document, including the archive series it belongs to, its physical condition, and any access restrictions in place which you need to be aware of. The search term(s) will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the reference number in blue shows how the record fits in to the overall archival series.

Using the site

To return to the previous page, click on ‘Back’ on your web browser. Alternatively, click on ‘Next’, ‘Back’, ‘First page’ or ‘Last page’ at the top of the screen to move on to the next page or navigate through the results.

To perform a new search, click on ‘Search again’ at the top right of the results page, and select ‘Search’ or press Enter.

Comments & suggestions

We welcome comments and suggestions. If you would like to offer feedback on your experience of using the catalogue, or make suggestions to improve it, please contact us at: archives@canterbury-cathedral.org

Date: When searching by date, you need to enter the full year, e.g. ‘1510-1550’ rather than ‘1510-50’. The catalogue works in the following way:

1510-1550	Any date in this range (note: both years need all four numbers)
Apr-Jul 1600	Finds any date between 1 April and 31 July 1600
1-2 June 1756	1st and 2nd of June 1756 only
1 Mar 1900-1901	Finds any date between 1 March 1900 and all of 1901
15th century	1400-1499
Early 16th century	Returns dates between 1500 and 1539
Mid 16th century	The years 1530-1569 (note: this overlaps with ‘early’ and ‘late’)
Late 16th century	Searches for 1560-1599
c 1455	Fifteen years either side of the date, here 1440-1469

Widen, Narrow and Exclude: To modify the hit-list, use the buttons in the following way:

To Widen:	Click on ‘Search again’ and type in another term in the text search box, and then select ‘Widen’. This will perform a search matching the either current or the previous search term you entered (note: the previous term will be remembered but will not always appear on screen)
To Narrow:	This works exactly the same as above, except that selecting ‘Narrow’ will now find only those records which match both old and new criteria
To Exclude:	This removes records from the original hit-list which do not match the second search term. For instance, searching on ‘frog’ <search> followed by ‘city‘ <Exclude> will leave only two documents in Canterbury Cathedral Archives matching the first term but not including the second (here, excluding a decorated charter of James I).