Archive Search Instructions

General Procedures:

The archive contains all stories broadcast by WCAX-TV News from May 1, 1996 to the current date.

1. To search the archive, select a START and END time period. The form defaults to the entire range of available dates. You may narrow your search to any monthly time period within the available range.
2. Enter search words into one or more search boxes. (See below for more information on formulating searches.)
3. Select your preferred SORT method. The default is most recent stories first.
4. Click the SEARCH button to begin. Long searches may take 5 seconds or more. Narrow your search range if you wish to reduce search time.
5. The search returns a "hits" page with links on it for the relevant stories.
6. You may either click on an INDIVIDUAL story or select the box to the left of each story you want to see and then click the "Retrieve Multiple Docs" button to read them.
7. The story (or stories) you retrieve will have the search words highlighted.
8. When a search returns more than 10 stories, there will be a navigational bar at the bottom of each page of results. Click on the desired page number. The current page number is bracketed with "*"s. "Start", "Prev", "Next", "End" are also provided when necessary.
9. A new search may be started at any time by filling in new search information at the top and clicking the SEARCH button

Search Rules:

1. Enter words or phrases (one or more words surrounded by quotation marks) into the first box to get all stories having ANY of those words or phrases.
2. Wildcard searches: Use "%" as a wild card. "Word%" would return all matches that start with "word," i.e., "wordy," "wordlike," or "Wordsworth.". "%word%" would return all matches that contain "word" anywhere in the word.
3. You can enter different combinations of the above rules to suit a particular search.
4. Extra spaces anywhere in the search text are ignored.
5. Searches are CASE INSENSITIVE.