The digitized archival material of SweCarCol is made searchable by a simple, flat-file database. This means that the database does not make relationships between documents explicit from the data. Certain relationships can however be inferred from search results. A main goal for the project has been to reconstitute geographically dispersed records (primarily split between France and Sweden). A simple time-interval search often reveals the close relationship between Swedish and French archival holdings.
There are several caveats to keep in mind while reviewing search results. Firstly, the metadata should neither be considered exhaustive nor completely correct. It is recommended to try a variety of different searches. SweCarCol utilizes simple metadata such as chronological information (year and date), which express the time when a document was created, or what time interval the document covers (for example in certain statistical documents). Creators, authors, and personal names occurring in the documents are also included whenever applicable or possible, but gaps and inconsistencies are commonplace. Above all else, this is due to the heterogeneous nature of the archive, which is in a poor physical state in many places.
Also important to keep in mind is that certain key metadata rely on historical interpretation of the document. These could pertain to the function of the document (“Document category”) or to the thematic content of the document (“Category”). The metadata will be covered in detail below. Observe, however, that these metadata are often characterized by ambiguities, overlap and redundancy. Starting from the extended search prompt, we will review the metadata item per item.
General search
First of all, a quick search can be performed by selecting the “general search” tab. This field is also available on SweCarCol’s front page. Performing this search does a broad search in the following fields (covered at length below): “Description”, “Document Category”, “Origin”, “Other name”, as well as year intervals. This is especially useful when trying to find material based on document names and descriptions as well as doing a broad sweep of names contained in the metadata. You can also find all documents marked for creation in a single year by typing it out, e.g. “1789”.
Description
This field describes the content of the document. Highly standardised series of documents (such as reports and minutes) often do not feature lengthy descriptions. Note that other kinds of descriptive information is included in the “Document type” field. Also note that descriptive information is primarily in Swedish. Sometimes it can be noted in English or French, in which case it simply reproduces the title of the document, and indicates the language it was written in.
Period (year or date)
Perform a single year or date search or a time interval (either year–year or date–date). Pertains to date and/or year of creation. Keep in mind that undated documents missing chronological information due to damage is common. In some cases, the year of creation is inferred and should be scrutinised accordingly.
Origin
In a majority of cases, this metadata pertains to the author of the document. In more ambiguous cases however, it could mean, for instance, the commissioner of a document. It could also pertain to a legal body or institution responsible for the document’s creation.
Other name
Other persons, legal bodies or institutions mentioned in or connected to the document in question. A simple example would be a letter or a report penned by an author (“Origin”) mentioning other people or institutions. These would be marked up in the “Other name” metadata.
Document category
Describes the function of the document. In contrast to other metadata, which are searchable by free text typing, this metadata works by a drop-down, standardized list of 21 document categories. The standardized list is available in both Swedish or English. Note that there is another, more specific “Document type” metadata which is only marked up in Swedish. This field is available when reviewing search results, and is possible to search for via the “General search” field.There are hundreds of document types, and therefore“Document category” is intended as a shortcut to facilitate easier and more appropriate searches.
Collections and volumes
By selecting specific archival collections from the drop-down list, you can do a search based on archival provenance, and to restrict the search to a range of individual volumes. If you want to restrict the search to a single volume, you need to include said volume in both the start and end range, e.g: “S:t Barthélemysamlingen, Volume 1A –1A” returns all the documents from the S:t Barthélemy collection, volume 1A. Note that if you need results from more than one collection, you need to do several searches.
Category
This metadata is intended to work as a thematical tag to describe the nature of the document’s content. There are 19 categories, ranging from more abstract thematic context (such as “Religion”, “Education” or “Slavery”) to more document-specific categories which indicate provenance (“Court minutes” or “Finance council minutes"). Each document can have a maximum of 5 categories, which can be combined by the switch “Combine categories”. By combining categories, you can limit search results to documents containing a strict set of categories. If you, say, are trying to find instances of the application of slave legislation, try different category combinations such as “Slavery” and “Justice” or “Slavery” and “Court minutes”.