The simplest search is to enter a phrase in the “keywords” box, and to click “Show results”
Search the collection
Pro’s default settings will search for your exact phrase within the title and summary fields. You can also open the fields selector and elect to search by NFSA IDs, our older Catalogue IDs, and series or episode numbers.
Search fields
The main search panel also allows you to “Add another” set of keywords to search in different fields - for instance, you can search for “Neighbours” in the title and “6000” in the episode number to find episode 6000 and related items.
Keyword tips:
Search is not case sensitive – “Neighbours” and “neighbours” are the same search.
If exact phrase is not used, the search will AND all search terms together, ie search for “mad” and “max” will return items that include both terms.
Use filters to further narrow your search.
Filters - basic
Select “Show more filters” to see the full list.
Filters - full
Once you have selected “Show results”, you can change your search criteria at any point using the “edit search” button, or by changing the filters in the menu on the left hand side of the search results page.
Filters - result
Using filters
The NFSA catalogue’s use of dates, and beta filters such as digitised or transcribed, are described below.
Medium – the work’s medium, for instance such as “television” or “film, television, sound (published), multimedia, software, network, documentation, radio, online media, artefact and sound (unpublished).
Form – the work’s form such as “oral history” or “VR” or “documentary” or “poster”.
Date range – Set a “from” and “to” year. Or use day, month, year to be more specific. You can also search for items with no date data. NFSA Collection metadata includes quite a number of different kinds of date such as “broadcast” and “created”, but in practice we recommend starting with “display date” and narrowing your search only if needed.
Digitised – The NFSA holds a digital copy of this work, which means that licensing requests will not be delayed by having to digitise physical copies of the work.
Transcribed – A machine transcription of this work exists. This can be searched by the public but unfortunately not displayed. Industry and professional users of our Pro systems can review transcripts, or request access if the work has restrictions.
NFSA Controlled – The NFSA has a degree of control over the copyright of this item. While some NFSA Controlled items have multiple copyrights, complicating licensing approval, in general NFSA Controlled items support an efficient licensing, research and loan process.
Parent works only – BETA – display only “originating works”. Defining originating works is an ongoing process for the NFSA, so this filter can be helpful but also sometimes returns unintuitive results. A search on “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, for instance, returns the movie, and also episodes of the TV series, and also originating episodes of podcasts that feature the film.
Parent Collection type – BETA – Captures the type of a work’s originating work. The script of Mad Max has a parent collection type of “film”.
Restricted – BETA – Identify restricted and unrestricted works. In the past, the NFSA restricted a wider range of material than it would now. Don’t be immediately put off by this label - sometimes material is marked as restricted that should not be, and it is always worth asking to check if access is possible.
Colour - Colour in which the work was produced.
Countries - Country or countries from where the work originated.
Genres - Categories of works with similar plots, themes or setting, situation or characters. Categories include: Drama, Action, Crime, Adventure, Fantasy.
Languages - Original language of the work. Additional languages also describe whether a work has been subtitled or dubbed in another language.
Video format – Useful for professional users to find industry formats such as ProRes or 4K
Video resolution – SD (standard definition), UHD (ultra-high definition), and so on
