Riksarkivet MCP Server

This tool searches through historical documents and returns matching pages with their transcriptions.
Supports advanced Solr query syntax including wildcards, fuzzy search, Boolean operators, and proximity searches.

Key features:
- Returns document metadata, page numbers, and text snippets containing the keyword
- Provides direct links to page images and ALTO XML transcriptions
- Supports pagination via offset parameter for comprehensive discovery
- Advanced search syntax for precise queries

Search syntax examples:
- Basic: "Stockholm" - exact term search
- Wildcards: "Stock*", "St?ckholm", "*holm" - match patterns
- Fuzzy: "Stockholm~" or "Stockholm~1" - find similar words (typos, variants)
- Proximity: '"Stockholm trolldom"~10' - words within 10 words of each other
- Boolean: "(Stockholm AND trolldom)", "(Stockholm OR Göteborg)", "(Stockholm NOT trolldom)"
- Boosting: "Stockholm^4 trol*" - increase relevance of specific terms
- Complex: "((troll* OR häx*) AND (Stockholm OR Göteborg))" - combine operators

NOTE: make sure to use grouping () for any boolean search also  "" is important to group multiple words
E.g do '((skatt* OR guld* OR silver*) AND (stöld* OR stul*))' instead of '(skatt* OR guld* OR silver*) AND (stöld* OR stul*)', i.e prefer grouping as that will retrun results, non-grouping will return 0 results 

also prefer to use fuzzy search i.e. something like ((stöld~2 OR tjufnad~2) AND (silver* OR guld*)) AND (döm* OR straff*) as many trancriptions are OCR/HTR AI based with common errors. Also account for old swedish i.e (((präst* OR prest*) OR (kyrko* OR kyrck*)) AND ((silver* OR silfv*) OR (guld* OR gull*)))

Proximity guide:

    Use quotes around the search terms

    "term1 term2"~N ✅
    term1 term2~N ❌

    Only 2 terms work reliably

    "kyrka stöld"~10 ✅
    "kyrka silver stöld"~10 ❌

    The number indicates maximum word distance

    ~3 = within 3 words
    ~10 = within 10 words
    ~50 = within 50 words

    📊 Working Examples by Category:
    Crime & Punishment:
    "tredje stöld"~5           # Third-time theft
    "dömd hänga"~10            # Sentenced to hang  
    "inbrott natt*"~5          # Burglary at night
    "kyrka stöld"~10           # Church theft
    Values & Items:
    "hundra daler"~3           # Hundred dalers
    "stor* stöld*"~5           # Major theft
    "guld* ring*"~10           # Gold ring
    "silver* kalk*"~10         # Silver chalice
    Complex Combinations:
    ("kyrka stöld"~10 OR "kyrka tjuv*"~10) AND 17*
    # Church thefts or church thieves in 1700s

    ("inbrott natt*"~5) AND (guld* OR silver*)  
    # Night burglaries involving gold or silver

    ("första resan" AND stöld*) OR ("tredje stöld"~5)
    # First-time theft OR third theft (within proximity)
    🔧 Troubleshooting Tips:
    If proximity search returns no results:

    Check your quotes - Must wrap both terms
    Reduce to 2 terms - Drop extra words
    Try exact terms first - Before wildcards
    Increase distance - Try ~10 instead of ~3
    Simplify wildcards - Use on one term only

    💡 Advanced Strategy:
    Layer your searches from simple to complex:
    Step 1: "kyrka stöld"~10
    Step 2: ("kyrka stöld"~10 OR "kyrka tjuv*"~10)
    Step 3: (("kyrka stöld"~10 OR "kyrka tjuv*"~10) AND 17*)
    Step 4: (("kyrka stöld"~10 OR "kyrka tjuv*"~10) AND 17*) AND (guld* OR silver*)
    Most Reliable Proximity Patterns:

    Exact + Exact: "hundra daler"~3
    Exact + Wildcard: "inbrott natt*"~5
    Wildcard + Wildcard (sometimes): "stor* stöld*"~5

    The key is that proximity operators in this system work best with exactly 2 terms in quotes, and you can then combine multiple proximity searches using Boolean operators outside the quotes!



Parameters:
- keyword: Search term or Solr query (required)
- offset: Starting position for pagination - use 0, then 50, 100, etc. (required)
- max_results: Maximum documents to return per query (default: 10)
- max_hits_per_document: Maximum matching pages per document (default: 3)
- max_response_tokens: Maximum tokens in response (default: 15000)

Best practices:
- Start with offset=0 and increase by 50 to discover all matches
- Search related terms and variants for comprehensive coverage
- Use wildcards (*) for word variations: "troll*" finds "trolldom", "trolleri", "trollkona"
- Use fuzzy search (~) for historical spelling variants
- Use browse_document tool to view full page transcriptions of interesting results

This tool retrieves complete page transcriptions from historical documents in Swedish.
Each result includes the full transcribed text as it appears in the original document,
plus direct links to view the original page images in Riksarkivet's image viewer (bildvisaren).
Prefer showing the whole transcription and link in responses of individual pages. 
Download some of the nearby pages too on selected pages if context seem to be missing from the trancript 
to get a better picture

Original text:
transcript

Translation
Modern translation in language of user 

Links

Key features:
- Returns full page transcriptions in (original language)
- Provides links to bildvisaren (Riksarkivet's image viewer) for viewing original documents
- Supports single pages, page ranges, or multiple specific pages
- Direct links to ALTO XML for detailed text layout information

Parameters:
- reference_code: Document reference code from search results (e.g., "SE/RA/420422/01")
- pages: Page specification - single ("5"), range ("1-10"), or comma-separated ("5,7,9")
- highlight_term: Optional keyword to highlight in the transcription
- max_pages: Maximum number of pages to retrieve (default: 20)

Examples:
- browse_document("SE/RA/420422/01", "5") - View full transcription of page 5
- browse_document("SE/RA/420422/01", "1-10") - View pages 1 through 10
- browse_document("SE/RA/420422/01", "5,7,9", highlight_term="Stockholm") - View specific pages with highlighting

Note: Transcriptions are as they appear in the historical documents.
Use this tool when you need complete page content rather than just search snippets.