Where you are: State Library of NSW > Find > Catalogue (1980+) ~ WEBCAT
Related
Reader's Card
PICMAN
INFOQUICK
INFOKOORI
Full text Databases & Indexes
Guides
Internet links

Advanced keyword search

1. Fill in your search terms: Search tips

 

To search for a phrase, use quotation marks around the words. These words will appear together in all results exactly as typed.

"World Vision Australia"

When more than one word is entered in a search box, the search will automatically add AND between the words and will retrieve items that contain all the words, anywhere within the record.

Both examples on the right will retrieve the same results.

World Vision Australia

World AND Vision AND Australia

To broaden your search use two or more search boxes selecting OR from the drop down box on the right

Federal OR Commonwealth

To exclude words from your search, use two or more search boxes selecting AND NOT from the drop down box on the right.

Sydney AND NOT Harbour

Use NEAR to specify words close to each other, in any order.

Use BEFORE to specify a word appearing before another word.

Use AFTER to specify a word appearing before another word.

 

Use quotation marks " " to search for "near", "before" or "after" as words.

Australia NEAR Education

cart BEFORE horse

cart AFTER horse

"after" the flood

To select multiple options from one limit, hold down the Ctrl key and use your mouse to click on your selected options.

For example use this method to find more then one language in the language limit or to search both the SRL Reading Room and Mitchell Reading Room when using the location limit.

 

Keyword search results are usually grouped by relevance to bring the most likely titles to the top of the list. Each group represents a similar level of relevance and results are sorted within the group by date or title. To get an ungrouped result set, use boolean operators to form a complex query.

 

To search for words that have the same beginning, add an asterisk(s) * at the end of the stem.

To truncate up to five characters, use one asterisk. Eg. Histor* will find History, Historic, Historical, Historian

To truncate more than five characters, use two asterisks. Eg. Ocean** will find Ocean, Oceans, Oceanic, Oceania, Oceanography and Oceanographer

At present only right-truncation is possible. It is not possible to search for words with the same ending.

Histor*

Ocean**

 

Asterisk (*) may be embedded in a word to search for word variations. Eg. For spelling variations, Colo*r will retrieve both Color and Colour.

The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string.

Colo*r

You can use a question mark to replace a letter/letters in the middle of a word. Eg. Wom?n will search for Woman and Women

Wom?n

Select "any field" and type a single asterisk (*) in the first search box. Then use the Limit boxes to define your search.

Use this method to find all the works in a particular language, issued by a publisher, etc. You can also combine the limits eg. to find all of the videos/films in French.

 

State Library home | Feedback | Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy

© State Library of New South Wales 2007
Updated: Friday 24 August 2007 15:37:04