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Keyword Searching Help
How does it work?
The Keyword search options search for a word or combination of words from titles, subject headings, names of organisations, contents notes and series title.
Keyword searching is useful if:
- you are unsure of the exact name of a government department, the precise title of a work, the precise subject heading assigned by the Library
- you are trying to find conference proceedings/papers
- you are trying to find resources on a topic
- you retrieved only very few records in a previous search
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| Search words will appear in red on the single catalogue record display screen |
Phrase searching
Use quotation marks " " for multiple words to be searched together as a phrase, e.g. "genetically modified"; "work for the dole"; "human rights"
If you enter a string of words without the quotation marks, they will be searched as individual words joined by the invisible operator "and"
Examples
- A search of "genetically modified" retrieves records with the words in the exact order. It does not retrieve records that contain the words genetically and modified unless they appear together.
- A search of genetically modified retrieves records which contain both the words genetically and modified whether together or separately.
- If a search on "genetically modified" retrieves 0 records, the system replies with the following message:
No entries found
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Alternative spellings/plurals (Truncation)
Words may be right-hand truncated by using an asterisk ( * ). Using a single asterisk will truncate from 0-5 characters. Use a double asterisk ( ** ) for open-ended truncation.
Multiple words ending in truncation symbols are searched as individual words joined by the invisible operator "and".
You can also use a question mark ( ? ) to replace a single character within a word in any position, except the first character. Use this especially if you are not sure how to spell a partricular word.
Examples
- a search on manage will find only: manage
- a search on manage* will find: manage, management and manager
- a search on enviro** will find: environs, environment and environmental
- a search on wom?n will find: women and woman
- a search on anders?n will find: anderson and andersen
- a search on insect* behavio* will find: insect behavior and behaviour of insects
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Boolean operators
If you enter a string of words, they will be searched as individual words joined by the invisible operator "and", each item in your results list will contain both your search terms. This can reduce your search results. You can also manually input AND (or the character & ).
If you combine words using OR (or the character ¦ ), each item in your results list will contain at least one of your search terms. This will increase your search results.
To exclude words from your search, you must use AND NOT (or the characters & !). Each item in your results list will contain only the first of the search terms. This can reduce your search results. Be careful using this operator as you can exclude material that could be useful to you.
You can combine operators, but you must bracket the terms relevant to each operator. See the examples.
You can also use brackets to link groups of words. If you want to use the operators as search terms, enclose them in double quotes.
Examples
- child* youth OR child* and youth OR child* & youth
- (child* and youth) and not babies OR USE (child* & youth) & ! babies
- alaska and bears OR USE alaska & bears
- kangaroo* and not wallab* OR USE kangaroo* & ! wallab*
- handicapped or disabled OR USE handicapped ¦ disabled
- (college* or universit*) and (teach* and not learn*) OR USE (college* ¦ universit*) & (teach* & ! learn*)
- (girls or boys or child*) and (Australia* or Africa*) OR USE (girls ¦ boys ¦ child*) & (Australia* ¦ Africa*)
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Proximity searching
The operators for this type of search are "near" and "within"
Use NEAR (or the character ~) to specify words you want to appear close to each other in any field. It will retrieve records that are within ten words of each other in the same field. If the words occur further apart than ten words, they will not appear in your search results.
Use WITHIN in the same way as "near", but here you can specify within how many words you want the search terms to appear. Type the number after the word "within".
If you want to use the operators as search terms, enclose them in double quotes.
Examples
- fractal near geometry OR USE fractal ~ geometry
- sports near medicine OR USE sports ~ medicine
- fractal within 3 geometry
- sports within 4 medicine
- "within" and without - this will do the search as two words
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Qualify your search by field
You can specify which part of the record you want your search term to be in. Terms include:
- a:author
- t:title
- s:subject
- n:note
Examples
- If you were looking for the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, you could enter your search to find records with "Shakespeare" in the Author field and "Hamlet" in the Title field
eg. a:shakespeare and t:hamlet
- If you wanted an official government publication on handicapped in the United States, you could enter your search to find records with "handicapped" in the subject field, and United States in the author field.
eg. (a:united states) and (s:handicapped or s:disabled)
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