Search tips
You can search the CONNECT catalogue by doing a Basic
search or an Advanced search. The Advanced
search has the same options as the Basic search, plus some additional ones.
For specific help with a Basic search see the following sections: Enter
your search term(s), Boolean searching, Browse
buttons, and Limit
by language.
For help with an Advanced search, see also: Title, Author,
and Subject, Online only, Limit
by format, and Limit by publication year.
Enter your search term(s)
| Enter terms you want to search with in the box. |
female condom use |
| The search will automatically insert "&"
(AND) symbols between the terms you enter. |
female & condom & use |
| The "&" symbol tells the catalogue to
search for records that contain all the words you have entered, no matter
what order or where they appear in each record. If you want to search
for terms in the order you entered them only, put "quotation marks" around
the terms. |
"female condom use"
female & "condom use" |
If you want to combine multiple search terms in different ways, see Boolean
searching below.
Boolean searching
Boolean searching gives you more power over the results. For Author and
Subject searching, the catalogue will try to find the words you enter in
the order that you enter them. If you want to change the way the catalogue
searches for your terms in any search box, including Title and "Enter
your search term(s)", you can use the following symbols:
/ |
yoga / meditation will look for either word (or both) in any order (this is an " OR" search) |
& |
yoga & meditation will look for both words in any order (records that contain just one word will be ignored) (this is an "AND" search) |
! |
yoga ! meditation will look for the first word, but ignore records that contain the second (records that contain both words will be ignored) (this is a "NOT" search) |
* |
meditat* will look for any word that starts with "meditat" including meditation and meditating |
" " |
"transcendental meditation" will look for the exact phrase "transcendental meditation" |
Title, Author, and Subject
For searches in the Title search box, the search will automatically insert "&" (AND)
symbols between the terms you enter. See Enter your search
term(s) for more information on this search feature.
For Author searches, enter author names in the order last name, first name
(or just enter last name to get more results).
For Subject searches, please note that each CONNECT partner library uses
a different list of subject terms. While there is some overlap, some subject
searches may return results from only a certain number of libraries as only
those libraries use those terms. If you want to search by subject across
all libraries, search using CONNECT subjects which are common to all libraries
(see Browse buttons for help with CONNECT subjects).
For Author and Subject searches, the catalogue will search for your terms
as a phrase in the order you have entered them (e.g. if you enter "Smith,
John Jones, Jane", the catalogue will search for the phrase "Smith
John Jones Jane"). If you want to combine multiple search terms in different
ways, see Boolean searching.
Browse buttons
The Language, Title, Author, and Subject search boxes each have a Browse
button next to them (some of these are only found on the Advanced
search screen). When you click the button a list of search terms options
will appear. Use the arrows to move through the Browse list, and click on
a term to enter it in the search box.
Each search box may search more than one field, or part of a database record
(e.g. the Title box searches the title, subtitle, journal title and series
fields). Click the links at the top of the Browse box to view search options
for each field. To view CONNECT subject options, click the "CONNECTSubject"
link in the Subject Browse box.
Terms chosen from the Browse box will show up in the search boxes with "/" (OR)
symbols between them. If you want to combine multiple search terms in different
ways, see Boolean searching.
Online only
Check this option if you want to restrict your search to resources which
are available with free access online.
Limit by format
Choose a format from the list if you want to find resources in a particular
format.
Limit by publication year
Enter a year or a year range if you only want to find resources that were
published in a particular year or period. Use the following symbols to help
you create date ranges:
> ">2000" will
find resources published after 2000
< "<2000" will
find resources published before 2000
>
= ">=2000" will find
resources published during or after 2000
<
= "<=2000" will find
resources published during or before 2000
: "2000:2006" will
find resources published between 2000 and 2006 (including the years 2000 and 2006).
Limit by language
Click the "Browse Languages" button to choose one or more languages
from a list if you are looking for resources in certain languages. See Browse
buttons for more information on using the Browse button.