GENERAL SITE SEARCH
At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase. The results of a search are 'weighted' based on the frequency with which they appear on a particular page. The more often a term occurs in a page, the more weight it is said to have. All pages in which any of the search terms appear will be returned. The pages in which all the terms appear will be at the top of the list and the pages that contain only one instance of the term will be at the bottom of the list. Additionally, multiple occurrences of the terms in a page will give that page a greater weight and it will be placed higher on the list.

REFINE YOUR SEARCH
This feature comes pre-populated with the search terms you entered through the general site search. You may further refine your search using ALL of the words, an EXACT PHRASE, ANY of the words, or WITHOUT certain words.

ADVANCED SEARCH
The Advanced Search feature is specific to the Artists and Art Collections Online features of Maryland ArtSource. One thing that each Advanced Search allows is for searching a number of words you may relate to one another by using AND, OR and NOT so that you can search for records with ALL of the words (using AND), ANY of the words (using OR), or WITHOUT certain words (using NOT). Please note: When using NOT, it is very easy to omit pertinent results. Try to be certain that results that might support your research will never contain the excluded term.
The Artists Advanced Search feature allows you to search for artists by name, gender, race/ethnicity and the period of time during which they lived. The Art Collections Online Advanced Search feature allows you to search for artists by name, gender, race/ethnicity, the period of time during which they lived, and the date of the artwork.

PHRASE SEARCHES
When using any of the search methods listed above, you may Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") will appear together in all results exactly as you have entered them. Phrase searches are especially useful when searching for famous sayings or proper names.