Help with Searching the Library Catalogue

This document will help you find records faster and more accurately when using the online search mechanism

Topics covered in this document are:

Logical Operators

"Logical Operators" is a fancy name for the AND, OR and NOT options to the left of each search field. They offer a way of narrowing down or opening up your search by using different search fields.

AND

Instead of just searching for Records by an Authors Name, "Brown", you can add extra conditions, like Title. You might want all Records that are written by an Author with "Brown" in their name and also have "mining waste" in the Title

This is achieved by using the AND logical operator on the Title field. Records must have been written by an author with "Brown" in their name AND have a Title that contains "mining waste". This is a simple way of restricting your search results.

OR

You can easily search for different result sets using the OR logical operator. Using the example above we could look for all records that have been written by an author with "Brown" in their name OR have "mining waste" in the Title.

This will return all Records that have been written by an Author with "Brown" in their name, regardless of what is in the Title. It will also return all the Records that have "mining waste" in the Title, regardless of who wrote them.

Using an OR to search for multiple fields will return a larger result set, and is good to use when you are not too sure how to find the record you are after.

NOT

To exclude records from your search results you would use the NOT logical operator on one or more of the search fields. We might want to find all Records that have been written by an author with "Brown" in their name but do NOT have "mining waste" in their Title.

This is another restrictive searching technique

Searching for Words

Word searches are used when you are searching for a piece of text in a field. For example Author and Title are both text fields.

The text field ignores any special characters, such as the asterisk (*). Some users will be used to typing part of a name and using the * character to denote any amount of text after the last character. For example, Bisho* in the author field will not return the results you are after. Instead, use the "Matching Options" to the right of the text field, in this case use "Match Exact Phrase"

It may seem weird to use the "Match Exact Phrase" when you are searching for only part of a word. But this Matching Option is both very accurate and obtuse at the same time. You could search for "bisho" and end up with all authors that have bisho in their name, but you could also search for "Bishop, J.P." which will match authors to that exact phrase. The differences will become apparent soon

The default Matching Option is "Match Any Word", this will take your text, break it into words and search for each word in the records corresponding field. If any of the words match, the record will be displayed. Example: In the Author Text Field you type: "bishop keast" and select "Match Any Word". This will look at all records and their authors, if an author has the word "bishop" OR "keast" in their name, then the record will be displayed. This is similar to doing two different searches, one for "bishop" and one for "keast". Much like the OR Logical Operator

"Match All Words" is different again, it doesn't care about what order you type the words in, just so long as they all appear in the corresponding record field. Searching for "waste mining" in the Title field will result in all records that have "waste" and "mining" in their Title being displayed. This is similar to the AND Logical Operator