SEARCH
Chapter 3. SEARCHING
Entering Search Terms
You can use single- or multiple-word search terms in Quick Search and Advanced Search. You may also use the wildcard character “*” (see Using Wildcards for details) to broaden or narrow the scope of your search.
NOTE: Search terms are not case-sensitive.
NOTE: Diacritics are acceptable within search terms. In cases where diacritics are included in a search term, the results set may contain titles with versions of the search term that DO include the diacritics and titles with versions of the search term that DO NOT include the diacritics.
If your library has enabled “type ahead” functionality, the system will offer search term suggestions as you type based on the characters you have entered. Search term suggestions are derived from the indexes for your library’s main A-G or AV database, and consider both scoping and index choices to ensure search term suggestions are appropriate to the library and index selections applied to the search.
To use a single-word search term:
- Enter the single word you wish to search for.
To use a multiple-word search term:
- Enter two or more words you wish to search for.
- When multiple words are used in a search term in Quick Search, the system searches for records that contain all the words. Multiple words may be entered in any order. The Boolean operator ‘AND’ is automatically assumed between all words in a search term. For example, the search term king stephen will return the same results as stephen king.
- When multiple words are used in a search term in Advanced Search, the system uses the specified “matching” criteria when searching for records.
EXCEPTIONS
- When searching by Title Begins With or Subject Begins With, multiple words must be entered in the exact order in which they appear in the title or subject. ALWAYS begin with the first word of the title or subject. DO NOT skip words.
- When searching by Title Exact or Subject Exact, you must enter a complete title or subject. DO NOT omit words.
- Some third party, reference and subscription databases support the use of
quotation marks “ ” to indicate a phrase search. In these cases, the search term
“king stephen” (with the quotation marks) will return only those results that
contain the words king stephen in that order.
NOTE: For most databases, the following words are optional: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘and’, ‘at’, ‘by’, ‘etc.’, ‘for’, ‘from’, ‘in’, ‘of’, ‘on’, ‘the’, ‘to’ and ‘with’. These words are ignored when included in your search term. For example, you could search for Gone With The Wind by typing the full title or by typing just Gone Wind. Both combinations will retrieve the same results.
NOTE: For some databases, however, including or excluding these words may affect your search by returning inappropriate results or by returning no results. In these cases, you may wish to repeat your search and either add the appropriate optional words to or remove all optional words from your search term, as necessary.
You can locate items by standard number (ISBN, ISSN, LCCN, etc.).
To use a single standard number as a search term:
- Enter the standard number you wish to search for.
To use multiple standard numbers as a search term:
NOTE: Searching by multiple standard numbers is supported by Advanced Search only.
- Enter the standard numbers you wish to search for in the Enter a Search Term text box. You may enter up to 10 standard numbers in each Enter a Search Term text box. When using multiple standard numbers in your search term, separate numbers using the Boolean “OR” operator (i.e., “0198203640 OR 0140714782”).
To clear the Quick Search text box:
- Click the X on the right side of the text box.