Auckland City Council archives
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About the archival system
The archives database was developed to provide researchers with access to
Auckland City Council archives’ holdings through web-based finding aids. The
database is an implementation of the Australian series system for describing
archives.
Explaining the different levels of description
There are three levels (or types of description) in the database. These deal
with different aspects of the content or context of the records that are held by
Auckland City Council archives. The levels of description are agency, series and record.
The agency entities give you contextual information about how local
government in Auckland has been structured and what it did. This will help you
discover what records were created and where they can be found.
The series and record entities provide information about the content of the
records and how they were organised and used. See below for more detailed
definitions of each.
Agency
An administrative unit such as a city council, a road board or a local
authority trading enterprise (LATE) that undertakes business and creates records
in relation to this. Large councils may comprise several distinct agencies such
as standing committees and a number of departments. An agency can also be a
person.
Examples are: Great Barrier Island County Council, Art Gallery Committee,
Philips, Philip Aaron
Series
A group of records that were created, or accumulated, by an agency or
agencies. The records in a series belong together because they are part of the
same filing system or they resulted from the same process or activity. They
often have a similar format and informational content.
Examples of series are: minute books, aerial photographs, valuation rolls
Records
A record is a discrete item within a series. It provides information and
evidence of a transaction.
A record can be a single item, such as a document, map, film or sound
recording, or it can be a sequence of items, e.g. a file, volume, or photograph
album.
The individual descriptions are linked together by various relationships. You
can use these relationship links in the archives database to move between levels, eg
to see what records belonged to a specific agency.
There are also links within the levels, e.g. you can see which agency came
immediately before or after the agency you are viewing, or you can find out if
the agency controlled others.
In the database, entries always indicate which level of description they are -
Agency an agency description, Series a series description and Record a record
(item) description.
Which level type of search should you choose?
The database offers search options that reflect the levels of description:
Agency search, Series search and Record search. You can begin your search at any
level but there are advantages in starting at a higher level, such as agency,
and using the links to series and records in the results screens.
The relative merits of searching directly for records or searching in context
are described below.
NB. Whichever level you start at, there will always be links that can take
you to other levels.
Searching directly for records
The records option is the most direct search to follow. You will immediately
get a list of files, images, or documents, etc. that match your search criteria.
This search is very broad because it searches across all records in the
database. However, you can end up with a large number of results, many of which
may be off the topic. You can ensure you get a manageable result by using
distinctive or uncommon keywords, or entering more than one search criterion
where this option is provided.
The limitation to searching at the record level is that any keyword search is
based only on the title of the record. If your keyword is not in the title, the
record (however relevant) will not be returned.
Searching context
An alternative approach is to search initially for an agency that is relevant
to your topic of research. This can give you better results in the end and turn
up records that may not readily be found by title.
Searching in context allows you to get an overview of local government in
Auckland from which you can identify promising lines of enquiry, e.g. you might
find a particular committee that dealt with your topic of research and explore
their records.
Navigating down through the levels of description gives you more ability to
direct your search and ensure the most relevant records are reached in the end.
You have the options to view the contextual information in its brief form or to
view the full description, which contains detailed scope and history information
and a full range of links you can click to see related information.
Search help
Describing the four
searches
Keyword search
- This keyword search
initially runs a search for your keyword (or words) over the entire archives
database and returns a list of matching agencies, series and records
(in that order).
- A more precise result may be
achieved by choosing one of the other searches, such as agency or series
search. This is a less direct path but, by following the links, you may find
other records that are relevant to your research and that did not contain
your keyword(s).
Agency search
- This search will return a
list of agencies matching your search criteria.
- You can refine your search
by choosing from Name search or History search
- Name search only searches
on words in the name of the agency
- The History search only
searches across the administrative history field in the agency description.
This allows you to search for activities undertaken by agencies which will
not be evident in the agency's name.
- The full search searches
across all fields in the agency descriptions and as a result may return a
large number of results if you use a common keyword i.e. Auckland
- Clicking on an agency
name allows you to view further details on the agency, including links
to any previous or subsequent agencies.
- Clicking on view series
allows you to view a list of the series belonging to an agency.
Series search
- This search will return a
list of series matching your search criteria.
- You can refine your
results by selecting dates, a format type or an agency (see explaining the
search criteria for more details)
- Click on the series
title to view a full description of the series or on view records
to view a list of the records within a series.
- Click on an agency name
to view further details on the agency responsible for the series.
Record search
- This search will return a
list of records matching your search criteria. There are a number of options
to refine your results
- If you have a record number, i.e. a
reference by which the record was known, select it from the list of record
numbers
- If you have a series number to
which you wish to limit your record search, select it from the list of
series numbers
- Refine your results by a
format type or to a particular agency
- Click on the record
title to view a full description of the record or on the series title
to view a full description of the series to which the record belongs.
For more information about the archival system, please
click here.
Explaining the search
criteria
Keyword
Word or Phrase searches - You can search for records that have a particular word or
words in their title or description. Type the word you want to find (committee)
or type a phrase (town planning) to find those words in that order.
Exact Words - The database will look for matches to exact words unless
you use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard. To find variations of words, type an
asterisk at the end of one or more word stems, e.g. comm* will find
community, committee, etc.
Exact Phrase - To search for an exact phrase, precede it with an equal
sign (=). For example, =sound recordings finds only that complete phrase
(does not find just "sound" or just "recordings" or that phrase embedded in
other text).
AND-OR-NOT searches - Use the symbols & / ! between words or phrases to
represent Boolean AND, OR, NOT within one query box. Include a space before and
after the symbol. For example:
For an AND search, enter & (e.g. newmarket & council)
For an OR search, enter / (e.g. agreement / report)
For a NOT search, enter ! (e.g. permit ! building)
Words joined by & / !
are evaluated in left-to-right order. For example, building & permit / plan
finds archival records that contain "building" and "permit", or records that
contain "plan". Use parentheses to control evaluation order: for example,
building & (permit / plan) finds archival records that contain "building"
and "permit" OR "building" and "plan".
Proximity searches - Use the proximity operators w# (within) and p#
(preceding) to find words near each other (where # is a number). For
example, planning p5 committee will find "planning" preceding "committee"
by 5 words or fewer.
You can also include an asterisk (*) at the end of either
word (i.e. plan* p5 committee). However, do not string together phrases
(i.e. plan* p5 sub committee).
Case and Punctuation - Case in query criteria is usually ignored (a search for
investments committee finds Investments Committee). Punctuation is also
ignored, except for the AND-OR-NOT symbols (& / !) and search symbols
(for example, : = < >). If you do not want these characters to be interpreted as
search symbols, use quotation marks ("Brown Campbell & Co") or replace
the punctuation with a space (Brown Campbell Co).
Years
You can search for records that relate to a period of time by entering a
single year (eg 1987) or a range of years.
Range searches
A range consists of two values, low
and high, separated by a colon. Include spaces around the colon. For example
1952 : 1965 retrieves dates from 1952 through 1965 (inclusive).
"Less than" or "Greater than"
searches
You can do "less than" or "greater
than" searches using the < and > symbols.
Use < to find a date less than the
value entered (e.g. < 1947 finds dates before 1947)
Use > to find a date greater than
the value entered (e.g. > 1897 finds dates after 1897)
The equal sign (=) can be combined
with the < and > symbols in order to include the entered value.
Use <= to find dates less than or
equal to the value entered (e.g. <= 1950 finds dates including or before 1950)
Use >= to find dates greater than or
equal to the value entered (e.g. >=1930 finds dates including or after 1930).
AND-OR-NOT searches
You can use the symbols & / ! between dates to do
AND-OR-NOT searches. For example, 1973 / 1974 finds all dates in 1973 or
1974.
NB: Do not use a forward slash to separate date elements unless you
surround the date with quotation marks (for example, "12/31/1974").
Format / Material
Description
Records come in different
formats. There are five general formats that you can search for:
- Electronic
- Graphic
- Multiple Media
- Sound Recording
- Text
These formats can be selected
from the material description list or entered straight
into the format / material description query box.
Agency
In the series search, you can
browse and then choose an agency from the agency name list or the agency code
list. In most cases, you would do this so you only got results for series
created by that particular agency.
In the record search, you can browse and then choose an agency from the agency name list or the agency code
list. In most cases, you would do this so you only got results for records
created by that particular agency.
Each agency is registered by
Auckland City Council archives and given a unique 3-letter code, e.g. ELB for Ellerslie Borough
Council, MEB for Mount Eden Borough Council. There are three exceptions
- the
agencies of Auckland City (post 1989 local authority amalgamation) and Auckland
City Council pre 1989 local authority amalgamation – these are identified by a
unique alphanumeric code of three elements preceded by AKC or ACC
- where
the agency is a person.
Series
In the series search, you can browse and then choose a series by name from the title list or the series number
list. You can select multiple series from the lists. In most cases, you would
do this so you only retrieved information on that particular series.
In the record search, you can browse and then choose a series by name from the part of list or the series
number list. In most cases, you would do this so you only got results for
records belonging to that particular series.
Each series is registered by
Auckland City Council archives and given a unique code. The code consists of the agency code of
the agency that created or had last custody of the series, i.e. the agency the
series was "part of", and a three-digit number e.g. MEB 001.
Record Number
In the record search, you can browse and then choose a
record number from the record number list.
Because records are often generated within records
management programs, records are assigned numbers or references according to a
classification or some other system of arrangement.
Further help
Further information on searching is available by clicking
the Help icon
displayed
on every search screen.
This will direct you to some
general
search tips
and advice on how to use the
Browse
button.
Updated November 2008
