Boolean operators are commands issued to the catalog to denote the custom retrieval of a subset of two or more concepts. In a famous example illustrating Booleans:
When used with capitalization, the Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are operational in all keyword searches. Note the exception: when Booleans are enclosed within quoted phrases (" "), they will no longer operate as Booleans.
If two or more words are entered without any Boolean operators, they will be searched as if connected with AND.
If the words and, or, not are in a search phrase, but you do not wish to use the words as Boolean operators, put the phrase in quotes.
"nickel and dime"
"dazed and confused"
Enclosing a phrase in quotation marks nullifies any use of words as Boolean operators, even if they are capitalized.
"ZOO OR LETTERS NOT ABOUT LOVE" as enclosed in quotation marks will retrieve only a few results of this exact phrase.
ZOO OR LETTERS NOT ABOUT LOVE without quotation marks will retrieve over 100,000 results because the terms OR and NOT are being used as Boolean operators.
Enclose search terms and operators in parentheses to specify the order in which they are to be interpreted. Information within parentheses is interpreted first, then information outside parentheses is interpreted next.
(life OR death) AND philosoph*
If there are nested parentheses, the innermost parenthetical expressions are interpreted first, then the next, until the full search statement has been interpreted.
((song* OR poem*) AND (life OR death)) AND antholog*
A dash before a word acts as NOT.
cats -dogs
Put quotation marks around terms to be searched as a phrase:
"distance learning"
"gold standard"
Consider using quotes for title phrases:
"lord jim"
"call of the wild"
You cannot use a truncation symbol (*) within a quoted phrase to expand results. While this trick works in some databases, it does not work in our catalog.
"honey badger*" will not also retrieve "honey badgers".
To do a proximity search, put search terms in quotation marks, followed by the tilde "~" symbol and a number.
"happy camper"~3 finds happy and camper within 3 words of each other.
"online learning"~5 finds online and learning within 5 words of each other.