DBK
German Ballad Catalog
The Advanced SEARCH function on the Search page
Advanced Search
The Advanced Search below the pull-down menus provides what is essentially a full text search of the Titles, short descriptions, catalog identifying numbers, and Themes in the data base. It is very useful for finding certain subcategories (Aspects or Narrative Units), e.g. 110a: "Courtship rejected" or 810.4: "Belated discoveries." Being a text search, Advanced Search is not useful for finding Role identifications: Any search for "F" or "I" will retrieve hundreds of hits in the texts. Roles can be found with the pull-down menus. It is not a full-text search of the contents and examples in the entire catalog.
Advanced Search terms can be combined with the pull-down menus (e.g., a search using the pull-down Role of "Contestants" can be combined with advance search terms like "110.b Courtship: successful" plus optionally combined with excluding "320.1: Departures for the military").
Advanced search does not search the ballad descriptions in the Catalog, the Thesaurus, nor the alphabetic Directory (each of which is searchable within its own page).
Advanced searches are searches for text including the search by ballad identification number. The search criteria "AND" resp. "OR" are implied; select which alternative by clicking the radio button. The "OR" is inclusive (a search for "710: Public Festivities" [OR] "910: Accusations" will return all the 710's whether or not they are in conjunction with any 910's, as well as all the 910's without 710's). The "OR" is not exclusive [i.e., not an "XOR"]. Terms are separated by a space; punctuation is treated as letters. All letters are reduced to lower case for searching. "Wild Cards" which represent any letter are not supported.
"Find full or partial words" will return a search for {Raub Ritter} as {Raub}, {Ritter} and {Raubritter}. The same search as "Find full words only" would return only {Raub} and {Ritter} but not {Raubritter}. A search for the equivalent {robber baron} would return nothing since the data base is in German only. A "full or partial word" search for {war} will return "war" as well as "waren," or ""warnen," or "Warnung," "warten," "warum," etc. A search for "exact phrase" as usual returns only matches for the entire phrase enclosed in the quotation marks. A search for "Seeräuber Störtebecker" will return nothing, although {Seeräuber} and {Störtebecker} are both in the data bank, just not in one phrase together. (A search for {Seeräuber Störtebecker} without quotes will get both those terms but not just one of them, if there is an implicit 'AND'.
"Exclude" has the same effect as the X button in the pull-down menus ("do not use this"), except you could here exclude an entire phrase.
A search can combine one or many criteria selected from the pull-down menus as well as anything entered in the Advanced Search boxes.
All letters are reduced to lower case for searching.
As soon as you select or enter a search criterion there appears below the number of results ("hits"), so that you can immediately see how effective your search has been. You have the opportunity to create a .pdf file containing the search criteria and/or the list of found ballads. This .pdf can be printed or saved to your computer with your computer software. You might have to adjust the number of "hits" per page to print the entire list of results. The search query can be saved temporarily online and repeated or modified later as long as you do not leave the Balladenkatalog.org site. The box "New Search" will clear the previous set of search criteria.
You can adjust the number of results ("hits") displayed per page. You might have to "Jump to result number" to change the number of ballads displayed per page. You can change, save or print your list of results (see above). The first results listed are generally the closest to the search terms.
Each "find" in the results list displays:
A button that links you directly to the full ballad description and an example (See more at Ballad Entries)
A Title
A One-Sentence Description of the plot.
The Themes (TU) and the Roles (DP) assigned, perhaps displaying differing versions of the ballad separately.
The DVA's File identifier in the DVA's collections: the "song folder system."
The DBK number: the Idenifier Number of the ballad in this catalog (cf. Freiburg System)
Where the full-text entries are located how they are organized
The
full-text descriptions for each ballad type are available as .pdfs in the web
directory katalog-de. They are organized according to the ballads' arrangement
in the Freiburg System. While it is theoretically possible to to finda ballad
entry's URL by consulting the categories outlined in the Freiburg
System, or the Catalog's
List, it will be
considerably easier to access them via the main search page and
the the thematic classification there.
Of course, one can find a particular ballad by entering its DBK number in the "Search by Number in the Ballad Catalog" field. Entering "05.C3-05", for instance, will retrieve "Der schlafende Wildschütz" (EB 1467).
To learn more about searching this catalog and the search criteria refer to the
The Overview list of Themes and Roles
Complete thesaurus of Themes and Roles ordered by the categories of Themes presented on the search page; includes explanations, clarifications and distinctions amongst various Themes.
Alphabetic Directory to the Themes and Roles including subcategories: If you are not finding a Theme which works for you, look here.
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