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Frequently Asked Questions

Where did you get this data?

The Air Force Historical Research Agency provided a copy of the index in early 2001 in response to a public records request.

Is this a complete index to all of AFHRA's holdings?

No. In general, it only covers materials in AFHRA's index up to about 2001. Some things that may not be covered include:

The helpful staff at AFHRA will be happy to do a search for you for additional materials such as those acquired after 2000. Please see their web site at http://www.afhra.af.mil.

How do I obtain a copy of a document I found in the index?

Please see Obtaining Copies of Documents.

Can I download my search results?

Yes! On the search results page you'll see a small Microsoft Excel icon Microsoft Excel icon. Clicking this icon on the search results page will allow you to download up to 65,000 records of your search results in "comma-separated values" (CSV) format. If your search results are less than 2,000 items you also have the option to download a PDF version by clicking on the small Adobe Acrobat icon Adobe Acrobat icon on the search results page.

Is there any way to get more than 100 search results per page?

Yes. Just edit the search URL to change the "h" parameter to whatever number you'd like. For example, if you selected 100 search results per page your search URLs will look something like:

    http://airforcehistoryindex.org/search.php?q=WHATEVER&c=u&h=100&F=&L=

Just change the "h=100" to "h=300" or whatever value you'd like.

Isn't this index classified? What are you guys doing publishing classified information?!

The AFHRA index is unclassified. We're not publishing any classified material. While it is true that many of the documents maintained at AFHRA are classified, the index entries regarding them are not.

But I can't get copies of classified documents, can I?

Of course not. But you can request that classified documents be declassified. Your luck with this will vary depending on how sensitive the document is and how recent it is. Also, because our index is from 2001, some documents that are listed here as classified may have been declassified since that time. AFHRA can provide current information on the classification status of any documents in which you're interested. Please see Obtaining Copies of Documents for more information.

My, what a powerful and friendly full-text search engine you have! What is it?

We're glad you asked! This web site is powered by swish-e, a fast, flexible, and free open source indexing system. Please see their web site at http://swish-e.org for more information. The rest of the site is powered by Apache, PHP and XSLT.

Can I get a copy of the entire AFRHA index database?

Sure! We can provide it in either XML or CSV format. Just contact us (see bottom of page) and let us know what format you'd like it in.

Just who are you guys, anyway, and why are you doing this?

We're ordinary citizens, just like yourself. We believe in freedom of information (after all, government information belongs to we the people, last we checked), and we thought this site was a nice way to make some important historical information more available.

How can I contact you?

You can send us email using the address shown to the right. We welcome your questions, suggestions, and comments! Image of email address

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