Search by Keyword Relevance:

• Use a (+) sign before a term to indicate an essential term. This indicates that a record will be listed with more relevance if that term is found somewhere in the record:
  +music +therapy children
• Use an exclamation point (!) before a term to exclude it:
  archaeology !art
• Use quotation marks around phrases:
  "united states"

Relevance ranking is determined by a combination of factors. Items listed near the top of the list of results will have search terms in the subjects for those items' records. For example:

A Keyword Relevance search on space physics would return at the top of the list (most relevant) all records with space and physics as a subject, followed by records with only space or physics as a subject (less relevant).The more words you include in your search text, the more specific your search results will be.

In the list of results for a Keyword Relevance search, relevance is shown by number of bars, with 5 bars indicating the most relevant results, and also by color:

• Red (most relevant)
• green
• blue
• yellow
• black (least relevant)

Search by Author:

• Last name first: cisneros sandra (not sandra cisneros)
• Omit punctuation from names: obrien (not o'brien)
• Truncation is automatic: smith g finds smith gerald or smith grace, etc.

Search by Title / Journal Title:

• Omit articles (such as a, an, the, der, la, los, etc.) from beginning of title:
  catcher in the rye (not the catcher in the rye)
• Omit punctuation from titles: gullivers travels (not gulliver's travels)
• Truncation is automatic: texan finds texan emigrant, texan in england, texan jazz, etc.

Search by Subject (Library of Congress):

• Use Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings: texas history to 1846
• Omit dashes from subject headings
• Truncation is automatic: texas finds texas, texas agriculture, texas colonization, etc.

Search by Call Number:

• Example: F384 .N48 1996
• Truncation is automatic: HF5718 finds HF5718 .D58, HF5718 .L84, etc.

Search by Expert Keyword (and/or/not):

• Use Boolean commands (and / or / not) to combine search terms:
  communication and nonverbal not language
• Use quotation marks around terms to search for phrases: "health care"
• Use parentheses to group terms:
  (teenagers or adolescents) and (drugs or alcohol)
• Use a question mark to truncate search terms: hero? finds hero, heroes, heroism, etc.
• Use field codes to search within a specific part of the record such as author or title:
  nkey shakespeare and tkey macbeth
• Field Codes: nkey = name | tkey = title | skey = subject | gkey = general keyword

Search by Author/Title:

• Last name first: mozart wolfgang (not wolfgang mozart)
• Omit punctuation from names: obrien (not o'brien)
• Truncation is automatic: smith g finds smith gerald or smith grace, etc.
• Do not enter a title after the author's name. The resulting list will include individual titles and works

Setting Search Limits:

• Use Set Limits for Keyword Relevance, Title, Journal Title, or Expert Keyword searches
  • Limits will not work for Author, LC Subject Heading, or Call Number searches
• Use the Limit To menu to limit the search by one option such as location, format, or language
• Click the Set Limits button for more options or to set multiple limits
• The Set Limits feature must be used before searching