|
Search
Exercise
Using
"Find" Command
Search Skills Students need to
know...
Power Searching Strategies
Objectives for
students:
 Demonstrate
a variety of advanced strategies on chosen topic
Be
able to explain the search process used.
What a "keyword search"
searches:
Library Catalog
Library catalogs can be searched by Author, Title, Subject
headings and more. Many students choose to search the catalog by keyword search which
identifies the following:
authors'
names
title words
subject words
publishers' names
publication dates (ex. "1965")
words in notes
series title words |
= keywords in the online
catalog |
In
this sample record, keywords
include everything in red.
Unless you limit your keyword
search to fields, your keywords could come from any
of these sections of a catalog record.
|
- Title:
- Elizabethan
drama / Laura K. Egendorf, book editor.
-
- Published:
- San Diego,
Calif. : Greenhaven Press, 2000..
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Subject:
- Criticism.
English drama History and
criticism.
Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe,
Hamlet.
- Other titles:
- Egendorf,
Laura K.
- Material:
- 189 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
- Note:
- Includes
Elizabethan drama, essays analyzing
- Elizabethan
dramas, and a chronology
- placing
the dramatists lives and writings
- within a
context of major historical events.
Interest level: 9-12
|
Boolean Searching - Operators
Keywords typically gives a broad
retrieval, however it does not control for homonyms or
synonyms. (e.g., "Vikings" may retrieve information on
team sports, but not on the early explorers)
This often results in hits that are completely irrelevant to your
query.
Boolean searching allows you to
combine words or phrases using the operators AND, OR, and NOT. The
operators can focus or broaden a search:
|
Operator
|
Example
search
|
The search
will find...
|
Venn
diagram
results in pink
|
|
AND
|
Pennsylvania
and Quakers |
items containing
"Pennsylvania" and "Quakers". AND
narrows a search, resulting in fewer hits. |
 |
|
OR
|
dogs
or cats |
items containing either
"dogs" or "cats".
OR broadens a search, resulting in more hits. |
 |
|
NOT
|
Vikings NOT
football |
items containing "Vikings"
but not the phrase "football". Caution!
It's easy to exclude relevant items. |
 |
Parentheses (nesting)
Use parentheses to clarify relationships between search terms. For
example:
(United
States and Canada) and women
combines
"women" with either "United States" or "Canada".
Truncation -- ?
A ?
at the end of a word stem provides for all variants
on the word stem. For example, a search for
educat?
will retrieve:
educate,
educating, education, educational, educator, educators, etc.
If you truncate too
far, you will retrieve unrelated words!
|
|
Wildcards -- #
The #
provides for all possible variants inside a word or
word stem. For example, a search for
wom#n
will retrieve:
woman,
women
You may use
truncation and a wildcard on the same word or word stem.
|
Adapted from Duke
University Libraries <http://www.lib.duke.edu/reference/catguide/keyword.htm>
with permission 5/05.
|
