Site Overview
The site contains a full listing of the Museum of London's ceramics and glass collection. The object records are stored in a database linked to the website which contains 25,000 records - 20,000 ceramics and 5000 glass. 12,000 records have one or more digital images attached.
The site has been designed so that you can explore the collections through various paths.
Catalogue Search
This page enables you to see the records you want without having to browse through the categories.
The Quick Search option is for the non-specialist researcher and allows you to enter a keyword or phrase and then limit the search to Glass and Ceramics or just Glass only or Ceramics only. Searches using this general method will tend to produce larger results lists.
The Advanced Search option is for more detailed enquiries and offers you an opportunity to narrow down your search criteria to a much greater extent. Several fields in the database are offered and you can complete as many as you want. If you only want to see records with images, click in the relevant check box. There are further options to restrict your search to only objects in the London Wall galleries, or those held in our reserve collection at Mortimer Wheeler House. Ceramics and glass types can be selected and you have the option of choosing any number of categories. Leaving the ceramics and glass categories blank will search for all of them.
A few points to remember for both Quick and Advanced searching:- Use the wildcard (%) symbol if you are unsure of the exact spelling of the word, e.g. aquaman%. This will find all the aquamanile records.
- The search box is not case sensitive.
- Do not attempt to use Boolean operators (i.e. AND, OR, NOT)
- Entering more than one word will construct a phrase. For example entering stained glass will look for where those two words occur together. If the words you have entered do not occur together, you will get no results.
Browsing the collection
After clicking on either Glass or Ceramics on the home page, you are presented with a series of broad categories displayed in chronological order together with a corresponding date period. At the bottom of the page is a search box that enables you to find a word or words within the description of each category, e.g. Alice Holt.
Clicking on one of these categories displays a brief description of the material together with a series of records and thumbnail images. Click on the name of the object to view the fuller details. Where there are more images than can fit on a screen you are invited to browse through a series of pages.
Categories
The main Glass and Ceramics pages contain a Category search box. You can search category, sub-category and sub-sub-categories titles, descriptions and dates from this search box.
Publications
This section contains a list of publications associated with the objects in the database. Clicking on a title will display a fuller description of the publication together with a list of objects illustrated or cited. There is a search box enabling you to track down a specific publication by entering the author or title.