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Using Search |
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Overview
Keyword Search
Advanced Search |
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| Overview |
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The quickest way to access the records is to use the Keyword Search, available at the top right corner of every page.
To construct more complex searches, or to narrow your search to particular fields, use the Advanced Search page. Browsing by subject is also available from the All Sites page. Each of these methods for finding materials is described in more detail below. |
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| General search tips: |
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- Capitalization doesn't matter. For example, French is equivalent to french when searching.
- Use quotation marks around an exact phrase (e.g., "eiffel tower").
- If multiple terms are entered in a single text entry box without quotation marks, they are searched as if joined by the word AND -- in other words, the search will only return items that contain all of the terms you enter.
- Certain very commonly used words, such as the, and, of, and so on, aren't recognized during searches. These "stop words" will be ignored if they are entered as search terms.
- You can exclude all records that do not contain a word by including that word with a dash (minus sign) on the front of it.
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| Keyword Search |
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Searches entered as keyword searches will produce results when matches are found in
any of the following fields: Site Title, Site URL, Annotation,
Publisher, or Author. (Note that not all records contain Author
information.) Using Keyword Search is the quickest way to search the entire database,
and will typically generate the most hits.
If multiple words are used in a keyword search, only results that contain all of those
words will be returned (the system behaves as if an AND is used between search terms).
For greater precision and more focused searches, use the Advanced Search, described
below.
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| Advanced Search |
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Advanced Search provides additional options to refine your search strategy. Using this type of search allows you to narrow your search to one or more of the following fields: Title, Creator, Publisher, Classification, and Site URL.
- Enter your search
To search a particular field, select the type of search from the drop-down menus on the left. You may choose between Title, Creator, Publisher, Classification, URL, and Keyword. The URL field is based on the primary URL listed for each site. Selecting Keyword allows the same functionality as the Keyword Search, described above, but through the Advanced Search interface, Keyword searches can be combined with other searches.
- Specify Limits
Currently, three limits are available to allow you to focus your results in various ways. You can choose to view records from a particular type of top level domain (.gov, .edu etc.), or from a particular year of publication. Select your choices for each option, if desired, from the drop-down menus provided.
- Customize your results
You may select options here to choose how your search results will be displayed. In each display the Site Title is hyperlinked to the actual resource.
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