Search help

Quick search

The magnifier in the header opens a quick search window that queries all five entities at once and shows the first results grouped: people and organisations, documents, collections, instruments, places. The same window opens with Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac) and closes with Esc. The arrow keys move between results and Enter opens one.

The «All results» link leads to the search page, where the same results are shown in full, with one tab per entity and its result count. The page address carries the search term, so a result can be sent as a link.

Search ignores Greek diacritics: «αθηνα» finds «Αθήνα». Exact spelling is not required, since small deviations are still matched, and the more words given the narrower the result. People are also searched in their Latin spelling, so a composer can be found by a visitor who reads no Greek.

Browsing the documents

The «Documents» page does not open with a list of fourteen thousand records. It opens with starting points: a search field, cards per document type, a timeline by decade, and a curated group of featured documents. As soon as a term is typed or a filter chosen, the page becomes a paginated list of results.

Five filters sit alongside: document type, date, creator, instrument and collection. Next to each value is the number of documents it holds, and that number updates as filters are added: it always shows how many would remain if this value were also selected. The visitor therefore never lands on an empty result through a wrong combination. Active filters appear as tags above the results and can be removed one at a time.

Two values inside the same filter narrow the result: creator A and creator B means documents that have both.

The other entities

Beyond documents, every entity has its own index. Collections are presented hierarchically, with their sub-collections and document counts. Instruments follow the Hornbostel-Sachs classification. Places are shown on a map with an index beside it.

Language

Every page of the public portal has two addresses, the Greek one and the English one, the latter prefixed with /en/. The ΕΛ|EN switch in the header leads from one to the other, and the English link can be shared as it is: it opens in English for someone who has never visited before.

Catalogued fields appear in English wherever an English form exists. Where none exists, their Greek form is shown rather than an empty value.

Citing a document

Every public record has a permanent link that can be used for citation. The link is based on a unique identifier of the record rather than on its internal sequence number, so it stays stable even if the record is corrected or enriched later. Each document page carries a ready-made citation with that link.

What is shown and what is not

The public portal shows active material only. Records still in draft or deactivated are not visible and are counted neither in the filters nor in the totals. Web resources are displayed only where the rights allow it, see Rights and use.