Skip to Main Content

FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals

Searchable Fields Menu in Advanced Search

menu of database searchable fields

FIAF Record Types

FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database includes three types of documents:

  • Article Citations - International Index to Film Periodicals Database contains Bibliographic citations and Abstracts from over 340 periodicals, includes Full text for more than 70 of them.
  • Books Chapters - from the 5 key reference volumes.
  • Film Records - from The Treasures from the Film Archives dataset.

More information on these different sources can be found in the Content page.

The list of Search Fields in the Searchable Fields page will explain to which of these Record Types each field applies.

See examples on how to search the different types of documents in the Sample Searches document.

Thesaurus

The FIAF Thesaurus with more than 20,000 subject terms is used to classify the International Index to Film Periodicals. Subject terms are found in the subject field and this field is part of the searchable fields table to the right. Subject terms are also commonly known as descriptors, controlled vocabulary, and sometimes classification terms. Whenever they are also arranged hierarchically, they constitute a Thesaurus.

The thesaurus allows you to find subject terms to narrow or broaden your search and is available from the Advanced and Command Line Search. If you want to run a search on a subject, but you do not know what term to use, use the thesaurus to search the controlled vocabulary. A hierarchical display is available and will give suggestions on the appropriate subject terms to add to your search.

To use the thesaurus, select the Thesaurus link from the Advanced or Command Line Search, then browse or search for subjects containing the word or beginning with the word. Mark the items that you would like to search and then select the appropriate Boolean operator to combine your items. Click the Add to search button and your terms will be placed into the search form. From there, run your search to include the subject terms (adding additional search fields and terms if needed).

Look Ups and Browsable Indexes

FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database offers nine (9) Look ups (i.e., browsable indexes), so you can easily find spelling or format variations of, for example, an author's name or publication subject. You can find the Look up links in the Advanced Search page and they are available for the following searchable fields:

  • Authors
  • Cast
  • Companies/organizations
  • Countries
  • Directors
  • People
  • Production titles
  • Publications
  • Subject headings (all)

For a description of these fields, please see the Searchable Fields table to the right. 

Note: Look ups are also available from the Command Line search page (through the Look up terms link located on the right side of the page).

To use and locate a Look up, select the field from the Advanced Search drop-down menu. If a Look up is available, under the search row you will see a link to the Look up (e.g., Look up Authors).  Look ups for Directors, People, Companies/organizations, Subject headings (all), are listed in the More search options section of the Advanced Search page.

Select the Look up link and then you will see a browsable and alphabetical index for that field.  There are some indexes that will not display an alphabetical list before searching for the term, rather you will have to enter a term first, and then the alphabetical list of matches will display.

Once you locate the index term that you would like to add to your search, mark the item, and then click the Add to search button. The index term will now appear in the advanced search form along with the appropriate pull-down menu selection.  You may select multiple items by checking the box next to each, then selecting either the AND or the OR Boolean operator radio button prior to clicking the Search button.


Searchable Fields

An accessible version of the Searchable Fields table is available here below.


FIAF=International Index to Film Periodicals Database    

**  Use the look up list if uncertain of the format of the name


Field Name Label Search Examples & Explanation
Abstract  AB AB(“music track”)

SEarches the Abstract. Doesn’t apply to the Film records in FIAF
Accession
Document Number
AN AN(356894)

Search the unique database ID for articles and documents.
Anywhere   Disney cartoon

Enter keyword(s) without a field code label to search the entire record. On the Advanced Search page, enter search terms or phrases, and select the “Anywhere” from drop-down menu to the right of the search box.
Anywhere except full text NOFT NOFT(sound)

Searches for keywords in the citation and abstract. It excludes the full text of the article from the search.
Author AU AU.Exact("Parsons, James" OR "Parsons, J")

Use to find documents written by a particular author.   does not apply to the Film records in FIAF.
Names may be entered as Last Name, First Name or as First Name Last Name, when not using the Exact search: AU(james parsons).  **
Cast CAST Cast.Exact("Pickford, Mary")     CAST(AL PACINO)

Searches the name of the Actor (Cast>Name)
In FIAF applies only to the Film records. **
Cited Author CAU CAU(Cooper)

Searches for an author that is part of the Cited References section of a record.
Cited Document Title CTI CTI(Parallels in American and British Film)

Search for document titles that are part of the Cited References section of a record. 
Cited Publication Date CYR CYR(1987)

Searches for publication dates that are part of the Cited References section of a record.
Cited Publication Title CPUB CPUB(Screen)

Searches for a publication title that is part of the Cited References section of a record. 
Company
Organization
ORG Org(Paramount)      Org("Merchant Ivory Productions Ltd")

Production company. **
Country of Publication CP CP("Great Britain")    CP("United States")

In FIAF the field indicates the Country of the Publication and doesn’t apply to the Film records. **
Digital Object Identifiers DOI DOI(10.1080/01956051.2019.1657060)

Searches for documents with DOIs using the DOI search.
Document Feature DF DF(Photograph)

Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF. Use to search for features within an article: cartoon, charts, diagrams, graphs, illustrations, maps, photographs, references, tables.
Director DIRECTOR Director.Exact("IVORY, James")    Director.Exact("Griffith, David Wark" OR "Griffith, D W")
director(sofia coppola)

Search the name of the film Director. **
Document Text FT FT(“Sun Records”)

Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF. Search for keywords in the body of the article.
Document Title TI TI(“The Godfather”)      TI(Cabiria)

Applies to all types of records. Locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the article (FIAF) or the film or locates the title in its entirety (FIAF, Film records).
Document Type DType DType(Film)      DType(Review)      DType(Book)

See definitions per database in the Record Type box below.
International Standard Serials Number ISSN ISSN(00286362)

Looks for the eight digit International Standard Serials Number (ISSN), where available.
Hyphens are optional.
Issue ISS ISS(16)

Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF. Use to search the issue number of a resource.
Language LA La(French)      LA(Spanish)

Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF. Searches for the Language of the article.
Location  LOC Loc("Sicily Italy")       Loc(Spain)

In FIAF use to search for the Country as subject of the article, excluding the Film records.
Subject Headings MAINSUBJECT MAINSUBJECT.EXACT("WOMEN AND THE CINEMA")

MAINSUBJECT searches for specific subject controlled terms from the Thesaurus.
Consult the Thesaurus from the Thesaurus link in Advanced Search.
Applies only to FIAF , excluding the Film records.
Notes NT NT(Variety)      NT(Married n/5 Vivien n/1 Leigh)       NT(Playwright)
NT(awards n/5 baftas)       NT("fritz lang")

FIAF : searches the Production Details field, including the Production Title (Country, Director Name, Production year).
Person PER Per("Selznick, David O.")       Per(Almodovar Pedro)      Per(Ismail Merchant)

Searches all the fields with single person names.**
In FIAF includes: Cast, Director, Producer. Applies to all types of records.
Pages PG PG(6)         PG(4-10)

Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF. Searches for the specific page or page range.
Producer PRODUCER Producer(Griffith)       Producer("MERCHANT, Ismail")

Searches the name of individual producer. In FIAF applies only to the Film records.
Production Title PTI PTI(The Godfather)         PTI(“Mario Puzo's The Godfather”)

Locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the film or the entire title. Includes also the Alternative Title. Applies to all types of records. **
Publication date PD PD(19871020)      PD(19691217)      PD(1991)

Use this field to search for dates of publication of articles/books in FIAF , or the dates of World release of Films in all.
Publication Subject JSU JSU(“Motion Pictures”)

Useful only in FIAF . See definitions per database in the Record Type box below.
Publication Title PUB PUB(Variety)

Specific publication or publications. Useful only in FIAF .
See definitions per database in the Record Type box below.
References REF REF(Brian McFarlane)

Looks for the data in a cited reference. It will search all of the main components of a cited reference (cited author, cited document title, cited publication date, and cited publication title). 
Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF.
Source type SType Stype(Artistic & Aesthetic Works)  

Use this to find specific source types. See definitions per database in the Record Type box below.
Subject Heading(All) SU SU(costume)         SU.Exact("costume films")

Applies mostly to FIAF . Use the subject search field to look for a specific subject. A search for the subject heading “costume”, will find films with the subjects: costumes, costume films, costume design , etc. To run a subject search where only “costume films” is retrieved and no other alternative terms, search using EXACT.  **
Volume VO VO(14)

Use to search for the volume of a resource.  Use in combination with an Issue (ISS) search for more specificity. Does not apply to the Film records in FIAF.
Year YR/PY YR(1978)     YR(1914-1918)

Use a single year or series of years (separated by a hyphen) to search for all the articles published in those years (FIAF) or films released during that year or that course of years (AFI, FIAF, FII ).

Record Types

Database Record Type Document Type Source Type Publication Title Publication Subject
AFI (American Film Institute) Catalog Film record Film Artistic & Aesthetic Works American Film Institute Catalog Motion Pictures

Film Index International (FII)

Film record Film Artistic & Aesthetic Works Film Index International
Film Index International (FII) Person record Person Encyclopedias & Reference Works Film Index International - People and Institutions
FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Film record Film Artistic & Aesthetic Works Treasures from the Film Archives
FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Book Chapter Book, Chapter Books 5 key reference volumes Applied Arts, Black Studies, Communications, Communication--Radio, Communications--Television and Cable,
Ethnic Interests, Motion Pictures, Theater. 
FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Article article, back matter,
editorial, correspondence, feature, front matter, front page/cover story, interview, general information, news, obituary, poem, review, statistics/data report,
table of contents
Magazines‎, Newspapers‎,
Scholarly Journals‎,
Trade Journals‎
350 periodicals