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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Search Instructions

Key Word Search

  • Entering a single word in the search box returns all documents containing that word.
  • Entering multiple words will return documents containing all of the terms (as if there is an AND between each word).
  • Example: A search for Kant Hegel will return only those documents containing both names.
  • Leave the search term box empty and click [Enter] to find all documents, which can then be searched with additional options (see Modifying Your Search Example*).
  • Note: Searches are not case-sensitive.

Relevancy

  • Search results are ordered by relevancy by default (e.g., frequency of the word in the document, etc.).
  • When the search term(s) are contained in the title of the document, it is considered more relevant.
  • Multiple terms (including quotes or phrases) are ranked as more relevant than single words. To use a phrase along with other terms not in the phrase surround the phrase portion with double quotes ( " ).
  • Example: There slumber in every human being

Modifying Your Search

  • Any search may be modified with the search options located below the search box.
  • Results can be sorted by GA# or date rather than the default of relevancy.
  • All options other than sorting narrow the search results in some way.
  • Example: This query will produce all matches of Kant and Hegel in lectures given at Dornach. Note how Dornach now appears in the city option box.
    Example*: After clicking [Enter] with no terms in the search box, narrow the results to see all documents translated by Dorothy Osmond.
  • [Clear] to revert all options to their default settings but leaves the search terms themselves unchanged.

Advanced

Wildcards

  • Some characters known as wildcards have special meaning to the search engine.
  • A question mark ( ? ) matches any single character.
  • Example: A search for c?t would match cat, cot, and cut.
  • An asterisk ( * ) matches zero or more characters in sequence.
  • Example: A search for under* will match under, understand, undergo, etc.

Fuzzy Searching

  • Another special character is the tilde ( ~ ) which finds terms off by a letter or two.
  • This is useful when you are unsure of the correct spelling.
  • Example: Here the term Christmas is misspelled: Christmus~. If you has left the tilde off, no results would be found.
    However, even without the tilde, a suggestion will often be presented which links to what the search engine thought you meant: Christmus.

Boolean Operators

  • The search engine can follow Boolean search terms.
  • One boolean operator may be of particular interest, namely the minus sign ( - ). Preceding any term with a minus sign will exclude that term from the search results.
  • Example: A search for kant -hegel will match all documents containing Kant that do not contain Hegel.

Range Searches

  • Range searches allow you to limit any of the options to a specified subset of all results.
  • Example - GA: To find all documents containing the word Kant within the lectures to the Goetheanum workers series (GA 347 to 354), enter kant volume:[347 TO 354]
    Example - Year: To find all documents containing the word Kant dated between 1908 and 1920, enter kant year:[1908 TO 1920]

Additional Help