Skip to Main Content Header

Plan your Search

Basic search and Advanced search

  • By default, a basic search is a "keyword" search.
  • Enter a keyword in the search box and click on "Search".
  • A keyword search uses one or more complete words that are contained anywhere in the item's record, including titles, notes, abstracts, summaries, descriptions, and subjects.
  • You can enter words in upper or lower case, and if you use multiple words you can enter them in any order.
  • Punctuation is ignored during searching.
  • Download the WorldCat  Searching PDF

To find what you are looking for, simply type your search term into the search box. You can search by using keywords, titles or authors. There is also an option to change the language in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

  • Use the filters on the left-hand side of the web page to make your search more specific if necessary.
  • You can filter by
    • Library (Choose your Library)
    • Limit to Full Text, Open Access, Non-Fiction, or Peer Reviewed material.
    • Material type e.g. eBook, Printed Book, Theses, Dissertation, etc.
    • Year of Publication
    • Subject
    • Author/Creator
    • Databases
    • Language
    • You can use the filters menu at the left hand side of the page to restrict the search to specific items. You can restrict the search to only look for certain formats, such as books, eBooks, articles, newspapers or videos. You can also refine the search by publication date, author, subject and language.

 

Using Boolean operators to search

  • An expert search may include Boolean operators.
  • This search may be executed in any search box, such as the basic search box or the Advanced Search screen.
  • When using Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) in a search, these must be capitalized. Search terms with Boolean operators are processed in left-to-right order.
     

Boolean Operators explained

A search query consists of all the keywords you identified during the topic analysis of your assignment/paper's title.

For e.g. if you are a student in Communication Studies and the topic of your assignment/paper is  "The role that political propaganda plays in mass media"

you might construct your search query along any one of the following lines:

  1. (mass media OR broadcasting OR radio OR television) AND propaganda AND (politic* OR government*)
  2. propaganda AND ("freedom of speech" OR "freedom of the press" OR "right to know") AND (media OR broadcast* OR journalis*)
  3. role AND propaganda AND "mass media"

There are three operators for approximate term queries:

  • asterisk(*)
  • question mark(?)
  • hash sign(#)

Truncation (*)

  • Add to the end of the word to retrieve variant endings.
  • Enter the first three characters of the term (at a minimum) and follow with an asterisk (*).
  • Example:
    • securit* retrieves results for security, securities, and securitization
    • connect* retrieves results for connect, connection and connectivity

Wildcard (# and ?)

  • Enter the first three characters of the term (at a minimum) and follow with a wildcard.
  • WorldCat Discovery supports using two wildcard characters, the hash sign (#) and the question mark (?).
  • Use the hash (#) sign to represent a single character.
  • Use the question mark (?) to match missing (zero) and up to nine characters, including no additional characters.
  • Example:
    • wom#n retrieves results for woman and women
    • enclop?dia retrieves results for encyclopedia and encyclopaedia 
    • res?4tion retrieves results for respiration, restoration and reservation

Use the advanced search to perform a more in-depth search than the Basic searchLinks to an external site. allows. You can combine up to five indexes and apply limits to retrieve a more precise set of search results.

Navigate to the Advanced Search screen by clicking on Advanced Search below the search bar in your interface.

 

Dropdown lists & indexes in Advanced Search

1. Click Advanced Search.

2. On the Advanced Search window, select an Index from the list (i.e: Keyword, Title)

3. Based on the index you selected, enter your search terms into the search field.

4. Optional. Enter up to five combinations of indexes and search terms:

Search Tools

Within Advanced Search, options to limit your search are available at the bottom of the screen. The available search tools depend on what content you are searching: a single database, multiple databases, WorldCat, and so forth. Note that Year and Location (Libraries Worldwide, etc.) are always available.

1. Using "Search tools" to refine your search results to

  • peer-reviewed articles and/or open access
  • format
  • publication
  • extend to Libraries Worldwide records

2. Click Search.

 

ADD IMAGES

footer