Advanced Search

• Advanced Search enables you to do field-specific searches for Full Record, Title, Author, and Date Range. You may also select the sources you would like to search.
• Entering a query in 'Full Record' will search the text of an entire bibliographic record. Generally, this will yield the most ranked results.
• To do a more specific search, enter search terms in any of the other fields. When more fields are included in a search, fewer ranked results may be returned but they tend to be ranked more highly. By using a combination of fields you can customize your search in a variety of ways.

Query Expressions

A query expression may consist of single term or you may construct a complex query using a combination of multiple terms, boolean operators, quoted phrases, parentheses and wildcards.

• Multiple terms
  • Terms with no boolean operator specified will have AND applied by default.
    Example: A search on frogs toads will return results on both frogs and toads
• Boolean operators
  • The boolean operations AND, OR and NOT are used to construct complex queries. (Note: These operators are ignored within quoted phrases)
    Example: A search on frogs AND toads will return results where both frogs and toads appear; frogs OR toads will return results where either frogs or toads appear; frogs NOT toads will return results with frogs and without toads.
• Exact phrases
  • You can search for an exact phrase by enclosing the phrase in double quotation marks.
    Example: A search on nitrate cycling will return results where the term nitrate is immediately followed by the term cycling.
  • All wildcards, parentheses and boolean operators contained within a quoted phrase are ignored as operators but will be interpreted as literal characters in the phrase.
• Parentheses
  • Using parentheses allows you to specify the order in which boolean expressions are evaluated.
    Example: global ((climate change) OR warming) will search for either global climate change or global warming; similarly, ((black holes) or (dark matter)) AND gravitation will search for either black and holes and gravitation or dark and matter and gravitation.
• Wildcards
  • Both single and multi-character wildcard operators are supported. Wildcards are only evaluated at the beginning and end of terms.
  • Use * to match on 0 or more characters (characters include numbers, letters and punctuation)
    Example: nucle* will return results with the terms nuclear, nucleus, nucleoprotein, etc.
  • Use ? to match exactly one character
    Example: DO? will return results with the terms DOE, DOI, dog, etc.
• Searches are not case-sensitive, so RAIN, Rain and rain will produce the same results
• A comma or semicolon in a query expression is treated literally, not as a separator or operator.

More Options

• 'Match [All/Any] Fields' allows you to select how the the search combines fields. Either of the two options can be selected from the drop-down list:
  • 'All' (default) finds results that match the queries specified for each of the fields.
  • 'Any' finds results that match the query expression specified for at least on of the fields.
  • These options apply to Full Record, Title, and Author.
• 'Date Range' allows specifying one or more years to search from the drop-down lists for 'From' and 'To';
  Options are:
  • leave with "Pick year" displayed (default), which does not use a date in the search,
  • select different 'From' and 'To' years to search the specified range,
  • select same 'From' and 'To' years to search a single year,
  • select only a 'To' year to search any year including, and prior to, the year selected
  • select only a 'From' year to search any year including and after the year selected.

  If a range is specified, the search will only return results specifying those years and any terms entered in Full Record, Title, and/or Author.

• The 'All Sources' list displays the categories that are available for search.
  
  • Individual sources within each category can be listed by clicking for either 'All Sources' or specific categories. To hide the listing, click .

runs the search.

clears the search terms in all fields and reverts to default settings.

Selecting displays in an information window helpful text specific to a particular item on the page.