LibrarySearch+ Help

Search strategy options

 

Phrase Searching

LibrarySearch+ allows for phrase searching with the use of quotes, “ ”.   The query “teacher education” finds results with that phrase.

Boolean Operators

OR, NOT and AND must be written in ALL CAPS.

By default, all terms in a search are combined with the AND operator. To expand the results set, use the OR operator “microcircuits OR nanocircuits” will return items that contain either term.

This can be combined with quoted terms such as “teacher education” OR “educator training”.

To exclude items, use the NOT operator or “-” character before a term. When used in the following query “animal NOT dog” the results will not include the term “dog”.

Wildcard Use

Searches within LS+ can be performed using the wildcards “?” and “*”.

The question mark (?) will match any one character and can be used to find “Olsen” or “Olson” by searching for “Ols?n”.

The asterisk (*) will match zero or more characters within a word or at the end of a word. A search for “Ch*ter” would match “Charter”, “Character”, and “Chapter”. When used at the end of a word, such as “Temp*”, it will match all suffixes “Temptation”, “Temple” and “Temporary”.

Wildcards cannot be used as the first character of a search nor within a phrase search.

Proximity Operators

Use the tilde (~) character and a number at the end of multiple words to limit results containing query words within close proximity.  When used on the phrase “chloroplast import” ~5, the term chloroplast and the term import will have to be found within 5 words of each other in the document. There must be NO SPACE between any part of the search string.

Increasing the Weight of a Term

Use the ^ character to increase the weight of a specific term. The ^ character should be followed by a weight. When used on the phrase “computer Olson^4” the term “Olson” will have more weight and result relevancy will favor that term.

Searching Specific Fields

The single search box in LS+ (basic search box or keyword search box in advanced search) will search across many fields automatically. For example, entering an ISBN, ISSN, or Call Number will bring back associated records.

You can explicitly search a field using the syntax: “field:(query).” For example, the search ISSN:(1234-5678), finds records that contain that value in the ISSN field.

Searchable fields:

  • Title
  • SubjectTerms
  • Author
  • Publisher
  • PublicationTitle
  • Volume
  • Issue
  • Language
  • Notes
  • ISBN
  • ISSN
  • DOI
  • DEWEY