Type words in any order. Searches author, title, subject, etc.
Examples:
- “wyoming wildlife” searches that exact phrase
- wyoming wildlife finds everything containing both words, not necessarily next to each other or in that order
- sports or athletics finds everything containing either word—especially useful for synonyms or conceptually related terms
Type all or part of the title, beginning with the first word. Initial articles in English (A, An, The) can be omitted. For other languages, try typing titles both with and without the initial articles (El, Le, Das, etc.) for the most complete results
Examples:
- wind in the willows
- el nino in history
- cat on a hot
Type all or part of an author’s name (“author” includes artist, composer, organization, etc.). Use normal word order for organizations.
Examples:
- shakespeare, william
- angelou, m
- american medical association
- wyoming dept of agriculture
Type as much or as little of the subject as you know. Subject search uses standardized terminology (mostly Library of Congress “subject headings”) and may not always match with your search terms. Sometimes the system will help by suggesting the correct terms. If not, try any of the following: keyword search; select advanced search and then choose subject from the drop-down menu; or ask a librarian.
Examples: Topics
- united states history civil war
- indians of north america
- hiking wyoming
Example: People
Example: Company
Example: Country
Type all or part of the call number you want. Punctuation and spaces do not matter
Examples:
Government document number:
Call numbers for U.S. federal government publications. Type the beginning or all of the number, including punctuation and spaces.
Examples:
Other number (miscellaneous locations/collections):
Type in all or part of the number desired.
Examples:
- 978.7 (Dewey Decimal number--used in Learning Resources Center)
- F Row (work of fiction in Learning Resources Center)
- Hist (UW hardcopy thesis done in the History Dept.)
- Medicine Bow 1932 30 min (map)
ISBN/ISSN
Unique standard numbers used to identify a book (ISBN) or journal, magazine, etc. (ISSN). For ISBN, punctuation and spaces may be omitted. For ISSN, include the hyphen
Examples:
- 0803279361 (ISBN)
- 0303-7207 (ISSN)
Example: contributions in sociology
| Multiple Words |
When searching multiple words the system will automatically supply the Boolean “and” operator between each word. This means that all words typed into the search will occur somewhere in the retrieved items, although not necessarily in the order entered. Both examples will retrieve the same results.
Examples : world health organization
world and health and organization |
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| Phrase Searching |
Search for exact phrases by enclosing them in double quotation marks.
Example : “world health organization” |
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| Boolean Operators |
Use “and” to require that all words typed into the search be present in all results. Use “or” to require that any of the words in the search be present in all results. If you want to exclude any words from your search results, use “and not”.
Examples : yellowstone and wolf and recovery
sports or athletics
mercury and not planet |
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| Proximity Operators |
The “near” operator retrieves results that contain the specified words or phrases within a maximum of ten words of each other, in either order. The “within” operator is similar to “near” but allows the user to specify the maximum number of words that can appear between the specified words. “Near” and “within 10” are equivalent.
Examples : wyoming near university
income within 3 taxation (finds both “income taxation” and “taxation of earned income” |
| Wildcards |
An asterisk (*) added to the end of a word will find all words that are either identical to, or begin with, what is typed in. A question mark (?) replaces a single character anywhere within a word.
Examples : visit* finds visit, visitor, visitation, etc.
comput* finds compute, computes, computing, computers, etc.
wom?n finds either woman or women |
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| Field Limits |
Field limits let you specify in which parts (fields) of the search results your search terms should appear. The choices are any field, author, title, subject, and notes. “Any field” searches all four fields at once and is the most comprehensive search option. “Notes” searches miscellaneous data including tables of contents from books. |
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| Multiple Limits |
The available limiter selection boxes allow for one or more limits to be selected. Just click a single option to select it. To select two or more options, hold down the Control (ctrl) key in Windows browsers or the Command key on MAC browsers while clicking each option. |
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| Grouping |
Keyword search results are usually grouped by relevance to bring the most relevant results to the top of the list. Each group represents a similar level of relevance and results within the group are sorted by data or title. |
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