Library of Congress Online Catalog: Help Pages

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The Boolean Operators -- AND, OR, and NOT -- may only be used with Basic Search - Command Keyword and Guided Keyword.

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 rodgers AND hammerstein
children AND poverty
"civil war" AND virginia

Retrieves only records
containing both terms.
OR sixties OR 60s OR 1960s
labor OR labour
email OR e-mail OR "electronic mail"

Retrieves records containing
either one or more terms.
NOT caribbean NOT cuba
jockey NOT disc
"civil war" NOT american

Excludes records containing
the second term.
NESTING fruit AND (banana OR apple)

(women OR woman) AND basketball

((color OR colour) AND (decorate OR decoration)) NOT (art OR architecture)

Use parentheses ( ) to group portions of boolean queries for more complex searches.

Use the browser's [Back] button to resume searching.

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June 25, 2008