Phrases |
Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes will appear together in all results exactly as typed. Examples : "Education policy", "Development Studies" |
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Wildcards |
Words may be right-hand truncated using an asterisk ('*') in place of other characters. The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string. You may use '?' to replace a single character anywhere within a word. Examples : dyslexi* will search for dyslexia, dyslexic and dyslexics; politic* will search for politic, politics, political and politician; wom?n will search for woman and women |
Boolean Operators |
Use "and" or "or" to specify multiple words in any field, any order. Use "and not" to exclude words. Example : geography and tourism Example : (Primary or Elementary) and (mathematics and not teaching) |
Proximity | Use "near" to specify words close to each other in a sentence |
Field | A field limit causes the system to search only the specified field (Keyword, Author, Title etc.) for the specified word(s). |
When searching multiple words the system will automatically supply the Boolean "and" operator between each word; multiple words entered for the search will all occur somewhere in the retrieved records though not necessarily in the order entered. Both examples on the right will retrieve the same results.
Using multiple words:
Primary education curriculum
Primary and education and curriculum
Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes will appear together in all results exactly as typed.
A phrase Search:
"Northern Ireland curriculum"
* Matches any number of non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word. For example, "comput*" will match all words that begin with "comput" (e.g., "computer", "computation", etc.).
The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string.
? You may use a question mark ('?') to replace a single character anywhere within a word.
Use AND or OR to specify multiple words in any field, any order. Use AND NOT to exclude words. Select the operator you wish to use from the selection list on the Advanced Search form.
Using Boolean operators:
women and feminism
women or feminism
women and not feminism
Field limits may be specified by selecting a field limit from the selection list. These limits appear before the word or phrase to be searched. A field limit causes the system to search only the specified field for the specified word(s).
Keyword search results are usually grouped by relevance to bring the most likely titles to the top of the list. Each group represents a similar level of relevance and results are sorted within the group by date or title. To get an ungrouped result set, use boolean operators to form a complex query.
Most relevant titles
Highly relevant titles
Very relevant titles
Relevant titles
Other relevant titles
If you have a favorite author or subject for which you often search when using the catalog, you can save the search with the click of a button. This will prevent you from having to key in the search each time and let you place reserves on new materials quicker.
How to:
Library cardholders may renew their own materials online. All material may be renewed except for materials with reserves and materials on which you owe fines.
How to: