Reviewing the following search tips will help you to quickly and accurately search our vast selection of library and archive materials.
Using ANY SEARCH WORDS and ALL SEARCH WORDS options to customize your search:
When typing in keyword(s) you wish to search for, you will see a prompt to select between between the ANY SEARCH WORDS and ALL SEARCH WORDS options.
ANY SEARCH WORDS will find any of the search terms located in all PDFs in the database.
For example, if you enter “greyhound dog shows” this option will find all available PDFs containing any of these words, but not necessarily all of the words.
It may find some PDFs with the word “greyhound” and some with “dog” and some with “shows” and it may even find all three words in the same PDF, but not necessarily in that order.
ANY SEARCH WORDS will find PDFs containing all of the search terms located in them.
When searching the same words using the ALL SEARCH WORDS option, the search will now find PDFs containing all of these three words, but also not necessarily in that particular order.
Using quotations to refine your search:
When encasing search terms in quotations, the search will find all instances of the exact phrase.
Example: Searching for “kennel clubs” will find all PDFs with the words “kennel clubs” in that exact order.
Using an asterisk to refine your search:
Placing an asterisk at the end of a search term will find all words that start with the prefix you type.
Example: Searching for par* will find all words that start with the letters “par” such as park, party, partners, etc.
You can also put the asterisk at the beginning of the search term:
Example: Searching for *ool will find all words that end with ool: school, pool, tool, etc.
Quick tips to begin your search:
– It is good to start with no quotes and ANY SEARCH WORDS option.
– If this brings up too many hits then try using ALL SEARCH WORDS option to narrow down your search results.
– Place the search words in quotes to find that exact phrase you are searching.
– If you use quotations and there are no search results for the word(s) you enter into the search, removing the quotations may produce more search results.