Catalog Lesson 2

Boolean Searching

The book catalog has several Keyword Indexes that allow you to search for books using keywords. Keywords are words, selected by you, that best describe your topic.

When you search the catalog using more than one keyword, you must place what are known as Boolean operators between your keywords. These operators are AND, OR and NOT.

A typical keyword search might look like this: children AND television

Useful tips:

It's important to realize that Boolean searching is sort of like fishing. When you are fishing, if you don't have the right bait, you might not catch exactly the fish you want.
When you do a Boolean search, you must select your keywords carefully. If you aren't using the right keywords, you might not catch the book you want.
If you need help choosing keywords, please see a reference librarian.

Man in boat fishing

Boolean Operators

AND

This operator will narrow your search when placed between keywords.
For instance, if you are looking for books about the possible evolution of birds from dinosaurs, you would type the phrase birds AND dinosaurs in the search box. This will return a list of book records that have both of your keywords somewhere in the record. Most of the books in the results list should have something to do with the avian evolution.
Please note: AND is the default operator for this catalog. You can type AND in between your keywords, but it is not necessary. If you do not use an operator between keywords, the catalog will default to AND.

This operator will broaden your search.
For example if you are looking for books on birds or books on dinosaurs you would place the OR operator between your search terms. You would then type the phrase birds OR dinosaurs into the search box.
The OR operator is also useful when you want to search using synonyms (words that mean the same thing, for example, car OR automobile) or words that have variant forms.

NOT

This operator will restrict your search.

NOT allows you to eliminate a term from your results. For instance, a search for Martin Luther, the monk who began the Reformation, would return a list of books on him, but also on Martin Luther King, Jr. the civil rights leader. The computer doesn't know which person you want, just that you want it to look for the words Martin and Luther.

To remove any books about Martin Luther King, Jr. place the NOT operator before the word you wish to eliminate, in this case, King. Your search phrase now looks like this: Martin AND Luther NOT King. If you do the search again, you will find that the computer has returned only books on Martin Luther the monk.

NOT is a very useful and powerful operator that can help to refine your search. However, it must be used carefully. In the above search you are asking the computer to remove any record with the word "king" in it. This means that a potentially useful book on Martin Luther by someone with a name such as "John King" would not be retrieved.

Truncation

You may use what is known as the truncation symbol, an asterisk [ * ], to include varying forms of a word in your search.

For instance, instead of looking for birds AND dinosaurs you could truncate birds to bird* and dinosaurs to dinosaur*. This way your search would include the word bird, birds, birding, dinosaur, dinosaurs, dinosaurian etc.

If you do not use the truncation symbol the computer will only search for the exact words birds and dinosaurs. By searching for all forms of the word, you increase your chances of finding relevant books.

Lesson 2:

Boolean Searching

Boolean Operators

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