If you try to share or bookmark the url of an item in RecordSearch, you’ll often get a ‘Session time out’ error when you access it. That’s because the urls only work within the current active RecordSearch session. So how can you create a shareable link that works across sessions?
There’s no obvious way of doing this within the RecordSearch interface. However, if the item’s digitised and you have a Twitter account, you can go to the digital copy and click on the Twitter share button. The Twitter edit box opens with a shareable link.
But that only works with digitised items. What about undigitised files, series, or agencies? Fortunately, the basic format of shareable urls is simple. For example, this url opens an item with the barcode of 149309:
http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/AutoSearch.asp?O=I&Number=149309
The Number
parameter is the item barcode, while the O
parameter says how you want the item to be displayed. Setting O=I
opens the normal item view, but if it’s a photograph, you can set O=PSI
to open it in PhotoSearch.
The same formula works for series and agency identifiers, except you don’t need the O
parameter. So a shareable link to series A1 would be:
http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/AutoSearch.asp?Number=A1
At this point you’re probably thinking there’s no way you’re going to remember all that next time you want to share a link from RecordSearch. And you’re right! That’s why I’ve created a simple app that generates shareable links for you: