Help

Search

Type a word or phrase into the Search box and click the 'Search' button. This searches across records for objects, collection descriptions, exhibitions, archaeology site records and people associated with our collections, including artists, makers, some of our early donors and dealers from whom objects were bought. You should double check for misspellings and typing errors, but you don't have to worry about capital letters, searching is not case sensitive.

You can enter more than one term in the General search box, and records containing all these terms will be retrieved. To find an exact phrase, put quotation marks around it, for example, "John the Baptist". To broaden the results use OR (this must be in upper case). For example; hill OR tree will retrieve records containing either hill or tree, or both, while hill tree would only retrieve records containing both these words.

Show me: only records with images: When this box is ticked, only records with images will be displayed in the search results.
Only works that are on view: When this box is ticked, only records for objects that are currently on public display in one of our museums or galleries will be displayed in the search results.

Advanced Search

The Advanced search is a more focused search, helping you to search in particular categories of the database. These fields search the object catalogue records only. You can enter search terms into more than one field. Do make sure you use the 'Reset' button to clear your last search before you run a new search. However, the more boxes you fill in, the narrower your search becomes, and you may find fewer records so start with one or two search terms first.

Collection Type:

This enables you to limit your search to a particular collection subject or discipline within the museum. Use the dropdown list to select a collection category.

Record Type:

This enables you to limit your search to Natural History (botany, geology and zoology specimens and associated material) or Material Culture (manmade objects). If you don't restrict your search to either Natural History or Material Culture, results will be returned with the subheadings of 'Objects' and 'Natural History'.

Object:

This identifies the type of object you are searching for, for example, a painting, chair, book, print, vase, carpet. For natural history searches use this field to search for common name such as beetle, sparrow, butterfly, snake, otter.

Title/Scientific name:

Use this field to search for particular names given to a work, such as a painting's title. You can enter one or more words; for example, entering the word 'loch' in the Title field will retrieve all object records for any loch. Entering Loch Lomond would only retrieve object records with the title Loch Lomond. You can also use this field to search for a scientific name e.g. Passer domesticus (house sparrow) for natural history specimens.

Artist/Maker:

All the artists or makers are displayed in a dropdown list. Click on a name to add it to your search. The maker can be the person who, or organization which, made or designed the objects.

Place:

Use this field to find object records associated with a particular place. This may be the place the object was made, used, collected, excavated, depicts, or is associated with in some way. A country, city, district or town may be entered as one or more terms. If more than one place is entered in this field, only records with both places will be retrieved. For example, entering Scotland Glencoe will only find records with both terms. Entering Glencoe Paisley will not find any records - you should enter the search as Glencoe OR Paisley.

Year Range:

Search for objects in our collection made in, or between, specific years. Enter the earliest year in the first box and the latest year in the second box, for example 1895 to 1920.

Materials/Form:

Search for objects made of a particular material or in a particular form, for example, 'oil on canvas' will retrieve images of paintings in oil, while 'gold' will retrieve objects made of gold. Form is used for our natural history records, so use search term such as herbarium sheet, mount, pinned, skeletal, shell, skin, slide, wet etc.

Named Collections:

Glasgow Museums has some groups of objects that are known by a particular collection name, for example the RL Scott Collection of Arms and Armour. You can select these from the drop down list.

ID Number:

If you know the museum accession number, for example from a label you’ve seen in the museum, you can enter this in the ID Number field. Accession numbers have different formats, so where they have more than one part, use full stops as separators, for example OG.1955.119. You can enter a number followed by a * if you’re unsure of the full number or would like to view records for a particular collection. For example, entering E.1939.65* will retrieve all records currently on the website for the RL Scott Collection of Arms and Armour.

Display Gallery:

Picking a term from the drop down list will display objects currently on display in a particular gallery in one of our museums. We are still working on our records, so not all objects on display may have made it to our website yet.

Not found what you are looking for?

If you have difficulties finding an object, please email us at museums@glasgowlife.org.uk. Not all of our over 1.2 million objects are online yet, but we are working on it.

Content Advisory

Some objects or descriptions may include sensitive, offensive, discriminatory or outdated imagery or words. Some may be part of an original work and some may reflect previous museum practice. We are working to revise historic descriptions to eliminate now unacceptable language. If you see anything that needs to be changed or you can provide more information please get in touch at museums@glasgowlife.org.uk.

Citation

If you wish to cite any of the records from this site, please use the following format:

<Author>, <"object registration number">, https://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/. <Access date>.

For example:
Glasgow Museums Collections website. "OG.1951.11" https://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/, accessed 25 December 2016.

Images on the website

New images are being added to the site and made available each week, but we can’t show images of some objects for copyright reasons. Glasgow Museums is committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others. We have taken reasonable efforts to ensure that the reproduction of content here has been done with permission from copyright owners for those works still in copyright. However, depending on your location, you may not be able to legally download or copy certain works, and it is your responsibility to ensure that local law permits you to do this.

We recognize that from time to time material may be published online which inadvertently breaches copyright law. If you are a copyright holder and believe that you have found material on this website which you have not granted us permission to use, or which is not covered by a copyright exception under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, please contact us in writing, giving your contact details, details of the work(s) to which you hold the copyright, including information on its/their maker, and proof that you are the rights holder. Address for contact: Glasgow Museums Photolibrary, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, 200 Woodhead Road, Nitshill, Glasgow G53 7NN, Scotland, UK.

We have assigned a Creative Commons licence to the images on the website where we have permission to do so. These images may be used for non-commercial purposes. Each image will have details of the licence and where you can find further information if you wish to purchase a high-quality print or license an image for commercial use. We define commercial use as reproducing a work in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation. Please email us at photolibraryenquiries@glasgowlife.org.uk for further information.