BIGsearch is a search and link feature of HymnSite.com. It is intended to help you locate hymn titles that are available on the internet. It is not an endorsement of any other site; it is simply an effort to help you find what you are looking for. Here are some things you should know. If you have other questions, don't hesitate to ask Chris by e-mail.
Copyright | Searching | Adding your lists
MIDI files from HymnSite.com:
All of the hymn files at HymnSite.com beginning with the file name "umh" were created by me personally, and I have placed no restrictions on any of them. They are free for you to use in any manner that you choose, commercial or otherwise. My sole purpose is making these files available. If you are aware of any copyright restrictions on any of them, let me know so that we can resolve any problems that may exist.
MIDI files from other sites:
Use of materials from most other sites is either limited to non-commercial use or use by permission only. Read the copyright notices at all of the sites you visit. They are not part of HymnSite, and I cannot give or withhold permission on them.
HymnSite.com's BIGsearch was designed to do one, simple thing--find hymn titles. The phrase that you enter for the search must match a phrase in the title exactly. For example, if you search for "amazing grace," you will locate only those hymns that have the word "amazing" followed by one space followed by "grace". (I know of only one hymn that matches this search!)
Searches are not case sensitive, so you can use UPPER CASE, lower case, or even MiXeD cAsE. The results will be the same. The script is written in PERL and uses PERL pattern matching, so there are a few other good tricks that you can try. Here are my suggestions:
Pick one, key word in the title that you want to find. For example, if you want to find Angels We Have Heard On High, search HymnSite.com's BIGsearch for heard or angels.
Don't search for common words like the or and. The script will handle it just fine and will even show you the total number of titles satisfying the query, but only the first 250 titles after HymnSite's will be posted. It's a "bandwidth thing"--you don't want a 2Mb list of hymns jamming your modem, and I don't want to send it, either.
If you want your search phrase on HymnSite.com's BIGsearch to appear at the beginning of the title, put a "carrot" (^) in front of it. For example, if you want Angels We Have Heard On High, search for ^angel.
If you want your search phrase on HymnSite.com's BIGsearch to match at the beginning of a word, put \b in front of it. For example, if you want to find a hymn with the word ear but don't want results with hear, dear, or year, then you should search for \bear.
Don't use punctuation in your search phrase on HymnSite.com's BIGsearch. It can do strange things to the pattern matching features in PERL. Sometimes it is just fine, but other times you will be very surprised! ;^)
BIGsearch is part of a private web site. I am Chris, and I want HymnSite.com to be the best resource that I can make it. As far as I am concerned, the more access I can facilitate for Christian hymn resources, the better. If you have free hymns that are available for download on the internet, I can add you to BIGsearch very easily. Just send me a list of the hymn titles on your site (not authors or composers, etc.) in ASCII text with one title per line, and the name and URL of the page where they can be found. I will visit your site and let you know as soon as I have added your lists to HymnSite.com's BIGsearch data, or if I have any questions or concerns. Results for your site will appear in the same way that results for other sites do. I won't promise any particular order for links to any individual site. Results from your site may follow immediately behind HymnSite.com's, or your results could be at the very end. Either way, a link to your site will appear if any of your hymn titles match the query.
Any questions? Just send them by e-mail.
God bless you--