Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2002 Issue
Primary Search: An Easier Way To USE the AE Database
Search Results
Search by Place of Publication.
One of the most interesting ways to use our database is to enter a location in the City or Town where Printed field to see what you find. Let’s try Worcester. By itself with no other information entered there are 1,342 matches. To identify ways to collect in the Americana field this is perhaps the very best tool ever created. Books are collected by author and subject but rarely have books been so easily identified by their place of printing. Collecting by place of printing offers unusual opportunities for developing personal expertise. There are so many places and so much history imbedded in the types of material printed, the sequence of publication and the subjects printed that collectors can randomly choose areas and be reasonably certain that few others are pursuing these same goals.
Looking over the Reports.
This is the SEARCH RESULTS page for a search using Rondout in the Place of Publication and 1846 in the Year Printed field. I didn’t use the author, Abraham Bevier, because as you can see from the records, the bibliographers had his name wrong for many years. If you never had any idea that such a book existed you might never find it. But a careful place by place search in the county or state you’re interested in will uncover many gems that people never know about. Of course, you may need to study some old maps to identify the place names used many years ago. What was Rondout then is Kingston, New York now and a search of Kingston will not uncover Rondout. There is plenty of information here but intelligence and determination are essential to get the best results. This is chess, not checkers. Click on the left image to see the SEARCH RESULTS .
Different searches will yield different results. The number of records found appears in the blue band at the top of your screen. We put 35 records on a screen so a number larger than 35 is going to have multiple screens. A NEXT RECORDS button is found at top and bottom of the screen or once you go forward both PREVIOUS RECORDS and NEXT RECORDS buttons. To return to the preliminary results page click on the BACK BUTTON and to begin a new search click on any title on the results page to reach the following options: Back to report, Go to Primary Search or Go to Home.
Over the next four months we will add several hundred thousand new records. Master these searches now and discover the majesty of American history in its details!
