• AND is implied
• Keyword searching is not case sensitive
• Author, Title, Subject, Notes, Series name, Publisher, Publication Date, and ISBN fields are indexed and searchable.
• When your search finds more than one item an "Item List" will be displayed.

Basic Keyword Searching

Enter any two or three words. (More words are possible, but not suggested without qualifiers, nesting, or Boolean operators).

 

Austen prejudice

Retrieves Jane Austen's Pride and prejudice and associated criticism.

 

Artur Rubinstein Chopin

Retrieves recordings of Artur Rubinstein playing the works of Chopin.

 

DK Eyewitness Castle

Retrieves Dorling Kindersley's book about castles.

Search Options

When you Highlight for a library that library's holdings will appear in the Item List and at the top of the Holdings Table on the Item's page. Limiting your search to a library will only return items which are owned by that library.

Several search options are available for Keyword searching to help you refine your searches.

• By material: Books, Maps, CD-ROMs, Recorded Music, Serials, and Videos (VHS and DVD)
• By date of publication
• By language

Limiting by Material, Date and/or Language is not available for Author, Title or Subject searching

Stop Words

The following "stop" words are not indexed for Keyword searching:

A - An - As - At - Be - But - By - Do - For - If - In - It - Of - On - The - To

Truncation

The truncation symbol is the dollar sign ($). Truncation symbols are used for retrieving variations of a single term with different endings. The $ must be placed at the end of a word, or word fragment. Using the longest possible word fragment will find the most relevant titles. See heading "Wild Card" for other options.

 

Chiropract$

Will retrieve chiropractor and chiropractic.

 

Encyclop$

Will retrieve encycopedia, encyclopedic, encyclopaedia, and encyclopaedic.

Wild Cards

The dollar sign ($) represents one or more characters. The question mark (?) represents a single character. Wild card symbols are used for replacing text in the middle of a word; they must be preceded by at least 1 character. See heading "Truncation" for placing $ at the end of the word.

 

Eric$n

Will retrieve Ericson, Erickson, Erichson, Ericsson, Ericsen, Ericksen, etc.

 

Wom?n

Will retrieve woman and women

Qualifiers

Keyword searches can be made more precise by specifying what it is that you are looking for.

• AU searches for authors' names
       au Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• TI searches for titles
       ti da vinci code
• SU searches for subjects
       su small business
• SER searches for series titles
       ser dk eyewitness books
• CKEY searches for a Title Control Number
       ckey a241152

Boolean Searching

Boolean Operators (AND, NOT, and OR) can be used to construct logical searches. Keyword searching is not case sensitive. In the following examples Boolean Operators have been capitalized to make them easier to see.

 

AND

 

doctors physicians = (doctors) AND (physicians)

Every item found by this search will include both Keywords: doctors and physicians.

Because AND is the most commonly used Boolean Operator, the search engine will assume that you want to perform an AND search unless you tell it otherwise by using parentheses to combine Keywords and Operators.

OR

 

(doctors) OR (physicians)

Every item found by this search will include either doctors or physicians or both.

NOT

 

(doctors) NOT (physicians)

Every item found by this search will contain doctors but not physicians.

 

(physicians) NOT (doctors)

Every item found by this search will contain physicians but not doctors.

 

 

Combining Qualifiers and Operators

You can combine Qualifiers and Boolean Operators to accomplish a more specific search.

If you are searching for books on the Da Vinci Code, not written by Dan Brown, try this...

   (ti Vinci code) not (au Brown)

If you just want to find Dan Brown's book without having to wade through all of the other stuff that's been written about his book try this...

   (ti Vinci code) and (au Brown)

This technique can also help you locate specific editions. If you are looking for the Folger Library edition of William Shakespeare's Hamlet the following search will do the trick.

   (folger) and (au Shakespeare) and (ti Hamlet)

Adjacency/Proximity Operators

Keyword N# Keyword searches for two keywords separated from each other within the specified number of words.

 

Hepburn N2 Tracy

Will retrieve any record in the database where Hepburn and Tracy appear within 2 words of each other in any of the indexed fields.

 

Keyword W# Keyword searches for records where the 2^nd keyword follows the 1^st keyword within the specified number of words.

 

Dick W2 Jane

Will retrieve any record in the database where Jane appears within 2 words following Dick in any of the indexed fields.

Phrase Searching

Phrase searching retrieves records containing a phrase exactly as written in the search box. The phrase must be placed within quotation marks ("  ").

 

"gift of the Magi"

Retrieve items which contain the phrase "gift of the Magi."

How to find DVDs

If you only want to retrieve DVDs in your search results you must:

1. do a KEYWORD search,

2.include DVD as one of your KEYWORDs,

star wars DVD
Humphrey Bogart DVD

3.and select Videos (VHS & DVD) from the optional "ALL MATERIALS" drop-down box.

It is not possible to limit Author, Title, or Subject searches to only return DVD results.

By the way, if you only want to find VHS recordings it is best to use the Boolean "NOT" like so:

(star wars) not (DVD)
(Humphrey Bogart) not (DVD)

How to find magazines

If you only want to retrieve magazines in your search results do a KEYWORD search, and include ULS as one of your KEYWORDs,

National Geographic ULS

"ULS" is a subject heading and stands for "Union List of Serials".

Author Searching

Author searches take you to the Author List where you can either click on a cross reference or view titles by clicking on the number in brackets at the end of the line.

• Searches must be entered last name first
• You only need to enter the first few letters of the name
• Punctuation is ignored

Austen Jane

Will display an alphabetical listing of names beginning with AUSTEN JANE 1775-1817

Marquez Gabriel Garcia

Will display an alphabetical listing of names beginning with a cross reference to the correct form of this author's name : GARCIA MARQUEZ GABRIEL 1928

O'Brian Patrick

Will display an alphabetical listing of names beginning with : OBRIAN PATRICK 1914

Grish

Will display an alphabetical listing of names beginning with GRISH. GRISHAM JOHN is near the top of this list.

Title Searching

Title searches take you to the Title List where you can view titles by clicking on the number in brackets at the end of the line.

• Initial articles must be omitted. This includes languages other than English (omit El, Los, Les, La, Un, Une, etc.), except for proper nouns (e.g. Los Alamos, Le Corbusier)
• You may enter just the first few letters of a title.

Da Vinci code

Will display an alphabetical list of titles beginning with DA VINCI CODE

amor en los tiem

Will display an alphabetical list of titles beginning with AMOR EN LOS TIEMPOS DEL COLERA

Subject Searching

Subject searches take you to the Subject List where you can either click on a cross reference or view titles by clicking on the number in brackets at the end of the line. Entries in the Subject List are Library of Congress Subject Headings.

• You may enter just the first few letters of a subject heading.

dogs

Will display an alphabetical list of subjects beginning with DOGS

personal finance

Will display an alphabetical list of subjects beginning with a cross reference to FINANCE PERSONAL

Display Options

Display Available Covers displays 10 items at a time.

The Printer Friendly Item List displays 25 items at a time without covers.

About Your Bibliography

Your Bibliography lets you pick out just the items that you want to either view, print, or email from one or more searches.

Your Bibliography is not a shopping cart. You will not be able to 'check books out' with Your Bibliography but you will be able to assemble a list of the books that you want and either print that list out or send it to yourself (or anyone else) via email.

Your Bibliography can not help you place many requests at once. You can place requests within Your Bibliography but you can not request everything at once while you are viewing Your Bibliography.

To add an item in the Item List to Your Bibliography click on the "View all library holdings and/or place a request for this..." link. Look on the left of the next page for the "Add this to Your Bibliography" link and click on it. You may have to scroll down to find it.

Notice the "Your Bibliography" link at the top of the page. It only appears when Your Bibliography has something in it and the number in parenthesis shows you how many items are there. Click on the "Your Bibliography" link at the top of the page to view Your Bibliography. If you change your mind and decide to take something out of Your Bibliography just check the box next to the item number. Then, scroll down to the end of the list and click on the "Remove Checked Items from Your Bibliography" button.

What do the Statuses mean?

The most common statuses are:

Available

The item is believed to be on the shelves and waiting for you to borrow it, but it never hurts to call ahead and make sure that the item you want is in the library.

 

Checked Out

The item has been borrowed and is not available at this time. Check with your local library to find out if there is another copy in the system that is available, or consider placing a reserve for the item.

 

In Transit

The item has been returned to a library in the BCCLS system and is In Transit to its 'home' library.

 

Other less common statuses include:

• Being acquired by the library : has been ordered and may be requested.
• Being cataloged : currently in processing.
• Being fixed/mended : in the back office for repairs.
• Storage : temporarily unavailable.

Your Library Card

To check your record, you need to have a PIN set up for your library card. Ask your librarian for a PIN.

This feature will let you

• See which items are currently charged out to you
• Renew items that are renewable
• See if there are any outstanding fees or fines
• Add or modify your email address
• Change your PIN