Boolean Searching

Use Boolean operators and nesting to search for combinations of words or phrases. Enter Boolean operators (i.e., AND, OR, NOT) in either uppercase or lowercase.

Note: Boolean operators and nesting may not be used in Basic Search types: Author/Creator, Title, Subject, LCCN-ISBN-ISSN, Call Number or Keyword.

Concept	Search Examples	Retrieval Formula
AND	children AND poverty "free trade" AND argentina "dirty war" AND fiction	Retrieves only records containing both terms.
OR	codice OR codex sixties OR 60s OR 1960s mercosur OR mercosul archaeology OR archeology	Retrieves records containing either one or more terms.
NOT	caribbean NOT cuba precolumbian NOT aztecs music NOT popular	Excludes records containing the second term.
NESTING	fruit AND (banana OR apple) (women OR woman) AND health ((color OR colour) AND (decorate OR decoration)) NOT (art OR architecture)	Use parentheses ( ) to group portions of boolean queries for more complex searches.

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