Cumulative Index Link & Instructions for Use

[dannmayo]

This index

CCSG_Article_Index_20200829.pdf

is searchable and downloadable.

However, it is also housed on the RPSL website, and a a better alternative is to use the one there as it allows multiple search terms at the same time, with immediate access to the items found in your search.

Access to CCSG Data on the RPSL Website
1. Go to https://www.rpsl.org.uk/. You do not need to log on as an RPSL member as all of the data on indexes is shared (with the owners’ permission) as part of the Royal’s charitable aims.
2. From the home page, click on the large ‘C’ icon to go to the catalogue.
3. Click on ‘Advance Search’ (button on the right-hand of the screen)
4. In the top two boxes, select from the drop down lists: ‘Journal’ (instead of ‘All record types’) and ‘GPL Virtual Library’ (instead of ‘All Libraries’). [GPL stands for ‘Global Philatelic Library’ if you are wondering…]
5. In the first pair of boxes for the search terms, select ‘Title’ (instead of All fields’) and type CCSG.
6. In the second pair of boxes, leave the first box as ‘All fields’, and enter your search term in the second box.
7. Leave the Boolean as ‘AND’.
8. If you want to further limit your search, click on the "+" button and repeat steps 5 - 7 for the new boxes. (For example, a search for the single term Bermuda turns up 85 items. But a search for Bermuda with the further limiting term airmail turns up only 2.)
9. You can keep adding more search terms using the "+" button and steps 5 - 7 if you want. You can also change the Boolean search parameter for additional search terms to OR from AND if you suspect that there may be alternate spellings. (For example, this proved handy in finding the alternate spellings Syra and Syros.)
10. When you have finished defining your search terms, press ‘Search’. What this is searching is the cumulative index. All fields in the index are examined: article title, author and keywords. The keywords have been added at article level using the expanded CCSG codifications.
11. You will be presented with as many hits as are found. Each must be viewed separately. Click on ‘Item’ on any hit.
12. This will give you more details regarding the particular edition of the bulletin that contains the article sought. To view the issue of the Bulletin containing that article, scroll down and click on ‘View’ just below the Associated Documents heading.
13. Now you are into the vagaries of your computer as to how it handles pdfs. On a PC, the pdf may open in Adobe Acrobat or you may be given an option to open it in your browser. When you hit View you will get the whole issue, so you will have to locate your article in it.

Some Additional Notes

A) I have found that the RPSL search engine is fairly forgiving. For example, "airmail" and "air mail" are treated the same, as are "L.A.T.I." and LATI. However, there comes a point at which Garbage In = Garbage Out. For example, "Gold Coust" will not work for "Gold Coast" -- so mind your typos.

B) If you choose to view an issue of the Bulletin in Acrobat reader, it will probably be lodged in your AppData\Local\Temp folder. YOU ARE WELCOME TO SAVE THE DOWNLOADED BULLETIN(S) TO YOUR COMPUTER, BUT YOU WILL LIKELY WANT TO DO A 'SAVE AS' TO ALLOW YOU TO MOVE THEM TO A DIFFERENT FOLDER.

C) The RPSL search engine searches the INDEX. Once you have downloaded a Bulletin, you will find that it is internally searchable using he search function in Adobe Reader or in your browser.

D) Due to the relatively primitive production technologies of the time, some of the earlier Bulletins are of very mixed quality. What you see is the best we were able to produce from the original paper source documents (usually from several sources -- it is just impossible to get more than a black blob that starts out a a black blob; sorry).