What it Does
You can search for combinations of words or phrases by using connector words (AND, OR, NOT) to establish a relationship among the words and nesting to group them.
When to Use It
Boolean searches and nesting may not be used in these types of Basic Search: Keyword, Title Index, Name, Subject Index, or Book Number.
Examples
- and
- Narrows a search by adding more elements.
This kind of search is useful for making a large subject heading
more manageable:
cookery AND fishwill retrieve only those records containing both words.
- It is also helpful for finding certain attributes:
poetry AND juvenileromance AND bestsellerpresidents AND biographybestseller AND braille
- or
- Makes a search broader:
cookery OR fishwill retrieve every record containing the word cookery and every record containing the word fish.
- This kind of search is useful when there is more than one possible
term or variation in spelling:
cars OR automobilesemail OR e-mail60s OR 1960s OR sixties
- not
- Narrows a search by taking elements away.
cookery NOT fishwill retrieve records containing the word cookery as long as the word fish does not appear.
- This kind of search is useful when there is more than one meaning to the term:
ships NOT spacejockey NOT disc
- It is also useful for removing certain attributes:
adventure NOT violenceanimals NOT juvenilepresidents NOT fictionbestseller NOT cassette
bestseller NOT k521 sexwill retrieve bestsellers which do not have the content descriptor "Contains descriptions of sex" The index code is necessary to prevent the search from eliminating records with occurrences of the word sex elsewhere in the record.
Tips
Nesting allows you to group terms by using parentheses for more complex searches.
(byatt OR delillo) AND bestseller(exercise NOT spiritual) AND dietregency not (k521 sex or k521 violence or k521 language)
Enter AND, OR, NOT in either uppercase or lowercase.
