|
Searching the Online CatalogYou may search the online catalog using one of three ways: Quick Search, Power Search, or Call Number Browse. While Quick Search allows you to search by one attribute of the items you are looking for (i.e. by author, title, periodical title, series, or subject), Power Search allows you to combine them in many ways. When you find a catalog record for a relevant title, you may also click on headings there for authors, titles, series and subjects, to find more similar titles. Also, you can click on the call number to begin a new call number browse search. Quick SearchSearch the catalog either by author, title, periodical title, series, or by subject using: Keywords or PhrasesKeyword and phrase searches look for each word individually. If more than one word is used in the search, each one is searched independently, not in relation to each other. Choose one search type: search everything, by author, title, periodical title, series, or by subject. BrowseBrowse searches present a list of authors, titles, series or subjects alphabetically with other terms in the same neighborhood. For example, browsing by the author "Roosevelt" will retrieve a list that includes the following authors:
8) ROOSEVELT ROBERT BARNWELL 1829-1906 [1] Exact SearchUse this technique if you know an exact phrase or the exact name of the author, title, periodical title, series or subject. This search will allow you to find relevant results quickly. The catalog searches for the words in the exact order in which they are entered in the search box. Power SearchUse the Power Search to narrow your search if you know more than one piece of information about what you are looking for. Power Search allows you to search two or more attributes of items at once: author, title, periodical title, series or subject can be combined. Call Number BrowseCall Number Browse presents an alphabetical list of call numbers that match or are adjacent to the number searched. More On Search Choices: How the Catalog Interprets Your SearchSearch EverythingThe search includes any information in the catalog record. If more than one word is entered, the words must appear in the same area (e.g., author, title, series, or subject heading) but not necessarily in the same order as entered. Enter words in single quotation marks '...' to search for an exact phrase. Search Everything retrieves the greatest number of items, although their relevance to the search will vary. AuthorUse a keyword search or browse if you're not sure how the author's name is found in the catalog. Punctuation is ignored. TitleUse a keyword search or browse if you're not sure of the exact title as used in the catalog. Periodical TitleUse Periodical Title to search for journals, magazines, newspapers, annual publications or other recurring titles only. Searching by Periodical Title rather than Title will help to limit results to desired items only. This search will retrieve information about the journal or series as a whole, and not records for individual titles or issues within it. SeriesThis search will identify volumes, issues and numbers published within the series. For example, a Series search for the U.S. Geological Survey's Professional Papers will retrieve several thousand titles. If you're interested in the series as a whole, search for Periodical Titles. It can be difficult to know how a series is represented in the catalog, so it's best to begin by using keyword or browse, rather than exact search, with series. SubjectTitles in the DOI Library catalog are given Library of Congress Subject Headings. Searches that use subject headings assigned by a librarian, rather than keywords otherwise found in the title or other areas of the catalog record, can help to limit results to desired titles only and will help you identify needed titles faster. Search LimitsThe following criteria can be used to further limit or format a search: Pubyear (Year of Publication)Limit by a specific year or a range of years: exact year: 1996 LanguageUse the pull-down list to select among languages. Item TypeUse the pull-down list to select among types. Match OnUsing Power Search, you can limit the search with the pull down list to change the "match on" option to: Keyword: the word or phrase you type produces a list of materials matching your search terms regardless of their placement within the field(s) you are searching. The search terms need not be together at the beginning of the title, author, etc., you are searching. Exact: the word or phrase you type produces a list of materials matching your search terms exactly, from beginning to end. Partial: the word or phrase you type results in a list of materials matching your search terms exactly, from the beginning. Whereas "exact" requires that every word of the title be entered, with "partial" you can type in only the first part of the title and receive the desired results. In both exact and partial modes, initial articles of titles are automatically skipped in the matching process. Sort ByTo display retrieved records, you can choose one of the following sorts: None: most recently added materials appear first, regardless of publication date FormatUse the pull down list to select among types. LocationUse the pull down list to select among locations. Advanced Searching TipsStop wordsCertain words are ignored in searching: a, an, as, at, be, but, by, do, for, if, in, is, it, not, of, on, the, to Remember too that the words used as operators: and, or, not, same, with, near -- can't be used as
search terms unless they are enclosed in double quotation marks. For example, the search "kill mockingbird" retrieves exactly the same results as the search "to kill a mockingbird." To search for a stop word, enclose it in double quotation marks. For example: "for" whom "the" bell tolls. Exact Phrase SearchingEither mark the "Exact" radio button on the Quick Search screen or surround multiple words to be searched only as a phrase with single quotes. For example: 'endangered species' Enclose stop words or operators included in the exact phrase to be searched with double quotes. For example: 'elements "of" style' Truncation ($) or Wildcard (?)Use the dollar sign truncation symbol ($) if you don't know how to spell your search term, or if you want to use various forms of the word. For example: ENVIRONMENT$ retrieves all items beginning with the letters "environment," including "environmental," "environmentalism," "environments," and "environment." If too many terms qualify for a truncated search, you will see a message, Item not found perhaps the following list will help. If this happens, a number entered to the right of the $ limits the number of characters replaced by the $. For example: ENVIRONMENT$2 retrieves all items beginning with the letters "environment" with 0-2 letters following: "environment," and "environmental," but not "environmentalism." Use the question mark wildcard symbol (?) for a single character substitution. For example, Nava?o retrieves both "Navaho" and "Navajo." Combining Search TermsIf you do not enter any operator between search words, the system automatically supplies "same." Combine search terms in a number of ways using a variety of operators: and: both terms must appear somewhere in the same record For example, the search "wolves and yellowstone" would retrieve only records that contain both words, while the search "wolves not yellowstone" would retrieve only records that contain the word "wolves" but not the word "yellowstone." Printing Catalog RecordsThe Print/Capture button lets you send search results to an e-mail address or download to your browser, where you can save to a file or print. If you have marked selected records before using this button, these will already be selected in the "Capture items" box. If not, you can type "all" to select all records in your search result, or you can type the numbers of the items that you want to capture. For example: 1-5,11-14,21 |