Keyword Boolean
A Keyword Boolean search looks for words and phrases anywhere they appear in a record. Select the Basic Search mode. Highlight Keyword Boolean in the Search By: dropdown menu.
Use and
to combine terms. Use quotation marks around phrases.
To find information about birth order and personality, type:
"birth order" and personality
Use or
to expand your search by linking like terms in parentheses. Type:
"birth order" and (personality or character or behavior)
Truncation / Wildcards
Use ?
at the end of a word to truncate a word or phrase:
behav?
finds behave, behaving, behavior, behavioral
"school district?"
finds school district, school districts
Use ?
within words to represent zero or more wildcard characters:
behavi?r
finds behavior, behaviour
wom?n
finds woman, women, womyn
Use ? at the beginning of a word to represent zero or more wildcard characters:
?sexuality
finds sexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality
?konomische
(German example) finds ökonomische, oekonomische, sozialökonomische (and other sub-fields of economics)
Note: Using a wildcard at the beginning of a word may slow the search.
Field Codes
You may specify in which fields (author, title, subject etc.) you would like a word or phrase to be searched. To use field codes, type the appropriate code before the word or phrase.
To find all items with the word Spain
in a subject field (code: skey
, for subject keyword) and the word history
in a subject field, type:
skey spain and skey history
For more information about field codes, see Keyword Field Codes.