Instructions for searching the Index to Speeches

The Empire Club Foundation web site allows you to search the indexed speeches given at the Club meetings since 1903. The results of the search will depend on what search strategy you have used. You may search by speaker, by topic, by keyword, or by year.

Searching. Searching is done by entering search terms in one or more fields on the search form, then clicking on the search button. If records are found that match your entered search terms, a result set will be displayed.

Results. The first result of your search is a set of speeches that will list the speaker, the title of the speech, the date of the speech, the volume and page reference for that speech.

You can obtain a more detailed search result for a single speech by selecting one of the titles in this results set. It will include the full bibliographic reference as well as a synopsis of the speech. Full text of the speech is available where indicated. Also included are links to other speeches on the same topic (they have the same index term as the selected speech).

Search strategy. You may search by a single criterion, or by two or more criteria at the same time. The more criteria you enter, the narrower your search will be. If your only entry is "Chretien" in the Speaker field, your result will be all of the speeches he has given. Selecting only the term "Canada – Economic policy" in the Topics field will give you all speeches indexed with that term. But if you enter the word "Chretien" in the speaker field and select the term "Canada – Economic policy" in the "Topics" field, then you will only get speeches indexed with the term "Canada – Economic policy" given by Chretien.

To ensure you do not miss a relevant speech, it is best to keep search strategies simple at first. Start with a single word in one of the search fields, or choose a single topic or year. Only if your result set is too large should you then try multiple criteria.

Note that matches are literal: fields contain text as it appears in the published speeches (see below) and only exact matches with your entered search terms will be found.

Speaker. The name of the speaker is listed as it appears in the published speech. For instance if the speaker is listed as "Turner, The Honourable John", you will not find this speech by entering "John Turner" in the speaker field. However, you would find it (among others) by just entering "Turner".

Topics. In this field you are restricted to a defined list of topics. Clicking on the down-facing arrow at the right side of the "Topics" field displays this list, and allows you to select one of the topics. "Topics" are index terms from Sears List of Subject Headings, 15th Edition, published by H.W. Wilson Co. in New York.

Keywords. Terms entered in the Keyword field are matched with words appearing in the Synopsis, Full Text, in the Title, in the Title of the Speaker, and in the Topics list. Using keywords is the broadest search strategy, and will often result in large results sets. A careful choice of terms can make this a useful field. If you are using more than one keyword, i.e., a phrase such as "Upper Canada College" be sure to put quotation marks around the phrase. Otherwise, the keyword search will result in speeches than contain the word "Upper" AND "Canada" AND "College" as opposed to the phrase "Upper Canada College."

Year. Choosing a "year" from the drop-down list will limit your results set to speeches given in that time period. The listed year, e.g. 1980-81, corresponds to the published volume of speeches, which are usually given between September of one year and April of the next.

You may also define a time period by specifying speeches given after a certain year and before another year. For instance, entering "1981" in the Before (year) field, and "1979" in the After (year) field will list all speeches given in 1980. Some of these speeches will be in the 1979-80 volume, and others in the 1980-81 volume.

Back to Index to Speeches

We are interested in suggestions for improving or clarifying this search index and instructions.
Please e-mail comments to Gail Richardson.