Searching the Catalog

• New Search
• New Search clears out your search completely and takes you to the default search page.

• Another Search
• Another Search will continue the same type of search, e.g., if your original search was by title, the new search will be a title search as well.

Save Marked and Save All Records

• This function allows you to save selected records to a list. Once you create a list of items, you can place multiple holds at once or export the list.

Modify Search

• Allows setting post-search limits by year, publisher, location, language, and format.

Both the quick and advanced searches in the Web catalog use the AltaVista Advanced Text Search syntax. The advanced search adds the ability to apply more pre-search limits.

Compared to traditional keyword searching, the quick and advanced searches in the Web catalog have the following functionality:

• There is no limit to the maximum or minimum index string length.
• No stop words, i.e., short frequent words such a, an, the, for, of, and, but, etc. are searchable.
• Initial articles a, an, the, and foreign language articles are stripped.
• Search broadens until results are found.
• You set your desired limits before searching, not after your result set is retrieved.
• Up to 32,000 bibliographic entries may be retrieved in a result set.

Search Tips for Quick and Advanced Searches:

1. Truncation/Wildcards
Search expressions may include the following wildcards:
• ? (Question Mark): Matches any single character in the specified position in the word. The ? wildcard may only appear after at least two characters.
• anders?n will match both Anderson and andersen


• * (Single Asterisk): Matches up to five non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word:
• inter* will match internal and internet, but will not match international

The * wildcard may also be embedded in a search term:
• colo*r would match both color and colour

The * wildcard may only appear after at least two characters:
• n* would be rejected, but ne* would be accepted (but would likely produce an unmanageably large result set)


• ** (Double Asterisk): Matches any number of non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word:
• inter** will match all words that begin with inter, e.g., internal, internet, international, etc.

As is the case with the * wildcard, the ** wildcard may only appear after at least two characters.

2. Boolean Operators
Quick and Advanced Searches can use the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT for complete flexibility of searches or to override word adjacency. These operators are not case sensitive.
• AND (Synonym '&'): The AND operator is used to retrieve records that contain all of the specified words or phrases in any indexed fields.
  • fractal AND geometry
  • fractal & geometry
  • college football & biography
  • large print AND romance
  
  
• OR (Synonym '|'): The OR operator is used to retrieve records that contain at least one of the specified words or phrases in an indexed field.
• phobos OR deimos
• phobos | deimos


• NOT (Synonym '!'): The NOT operator is used to modify the results produced by the other Boolean operators. It cannot be used by itself.
• mercury AND NOT planet
• mercury & ! planet

These searches would retrieve records that contain the word mercury, but do not contain the word planet.

Boolean operators may be combined in a single search expression. For example, "politics AND mexico AND NOT new" would search for records containing both "politics" and "mexico", but reject any records that also contain the word "new".

3. Parentheses
May be used to group portions of the search expression to further refine it.

• ecology AND (galveston OR houston)
• ((mexico OR texas) AND NOT rio grande) and (adventure AND NOT vacation)

4. Proximity Operators
• NEAR (Synonym '~'): This operator retrieves records that contain the words within ten words of each other in the same indexed field. If these two words occur further apart in the same field or they appear in separate fields in a given record, then that record would not be retrieved.



• WITHIN X (No synonym): This operator retrieves records that contain the words within X words of each other. The WITHIN operator is similar to the NEAR operator, but allows the user to specify the maximum number of words that may appear between the specified words.
• fractal WITHIN 3 geometry


• BEFORE (No synonym) and AFTER (No synonym): These operators retrieve records that contain the specified words or phrases in a particular order in the record. Any number of words can appear between the specified words or phrases.
• (chester BEFORE arthur) or (arthur AFTER chester)
This search would retrieve records containing the word chester followed at any distance by the word arthur (e.g., Chester Arthur, Chester Alan Arthur), but not records containing those same words in the opposite order (e.g., Arthur Chester).

5. Operators Used As Search Terms
Any of the Boolean and proximity operators may be used as a search term by enclosing it in double quotes.
• "near" east
This search retrieves records with the phrase near east in an indexed field. Similarly, to search for the phrase within and without, the search expression would be entered as shown below:
• "within and without"

6. Searching Within Specific Fields
To search words in any order in a specific field, use the following notations:
• title: t or ti or title
• author: a or au or author
• subject: s or su or subject
• note: n or no or note

Use a colon or an equal sign:
• t:robinson crusoe
• s=survival AFTER airplane accidents
• a:twain AND NOT t:huck*

Result Sorting
Available sorting options are:
• date (reverse chronological)
• alphabetical (by title)
• relevance

Relevance
Relevance is based on the AltaVista relevance algorithm, which considers the order in which a particular word is indexed in a record. Fields are indexed in the following order: titles, authors, subjects, notes, other.
• Single Word Searches:
• Most relevant: word is in the first 8 words indexed for the record.
• Next most relevant: word is in the next 24 words indexed (#9-32).
• Next most relevant: word is indexed more than once for the record.


• Multiple Word Searches (words are first sorted in ascending order by frequency in the index):
• Most relevant: first two words are very near each other in the record.
• Next most relevant: first two words are near each other.
• Ties are broken using the criteria for single word searches.
• If the results are sorted by relevance, users will see the relevance column in the display. Otherwise, the date column displays.

Punctuation and Special Characters

• All searches are not case sensitive.
• The ampersand (&) is equal to a spelled out word AND.
• Apostrophes are removed.
• Most other punctuation marks are replaced by spaces. The following sample searches produce the same results:
• All the King’s Men or all the kings men
• Fathers & Sons or fathers and sons
• O’Malley, Walter or omalley walter
• Mexico-history or mexico history
• U.S. News or U S News or u. s. news but not US News since there is no space between
  U and S

Diacritics
Diacritics (special symbols, accent marks, etc.) may be searched both with and without diacritics. If a search is entered with diacritics, only records containing those diacritics will be retrieved. If it is entered without any diacritics, both records with and without diacritics will be retrieved.

• The search for "caña" will retrieve only records with a tilde over the "n".
• The search for "cana" will retrieve records with "caña" and "cana".

You may search for the following special characters in the WebOPAC:

• at sign (@)
• dollar sign ($)
• number sign (#)
• percent sign (%)
• plus sign (+)

Glossary

• Automation system, or integrated library system: a computer system that helps users search for library materials through a Web interface.
• Record: a description of library materials in library-specific terms. Used by the automation system for searching. Records consist of fields.
• Field: a designated area of a record. Examples: Title, Author, Subject, Call Number, Notes, ISBN, etc. Available search options are based on the fields indexed by the automation system.
• Item: an actual book, CD, DVD, videocassette, magazine, government document, microfilm, e-book, etc.

Use this search if you know the name of a person who created your title: author, illustrator, editor, artist, producer, director, actor, composer, musician, performer, etc.

Personal Names

• Enter last name first, then first name. Commas are not necessary.
• dickens charles
• dickens
• Names with apostrophes may be entered either with or without an apostrophe.
• o’connor carroll
• oconnor
• Hyphenated names may be typed with a hyphen or a space
• baden-powell robert
• baden powell

Corporate Names

• You may search for works created by an organization, governmental body, music group, etc.:
• united states congress
• american medical association
• ama
• u2

Matches

• If there is only one match for that last and first name, all works by this author in the library catalog will be displayed.
• If there is more than one match, you will see a browse list of names.
• If you misspell a name or there is not a match, a browse list will be displayed with "Your search for XYZ would be here."

Search by Author and Title

• Use this search to find a specific title of an author with multiple works:
• Author: Shakespeare
  Title: twelfth
• Author: Steel
  Title: sunset

This is an exact phrase search. If you know the exact title, enter as much as you want. Skip initial articles (the, a, an, or any foreign language articles at the beginning):

• sound and the fury
• sound and
• a is for alibi (a is not an article in this case)

The exact match will display a full record for this title. If there is not a match or more than one option, you will see a browse list of titles; choose a title from this list.

Some titles have cross-references:

• karamazov brothers will point to The brothers Karamazov

If you do not know an exact title, use the quick search instead.

• Subjects are special descriptors for library materials based on specific controlled vocabularies.
• If your subject search is not successful, you will get a browse list of hyperlinked subjects with a "Your entry for XYZ would be here" message. You may also try other words with similar meaning, or ask a librarian for help.
• If you found a title of interest, look for subject headings in the full record. By clicking on the subject link, you will retrieve all library materials with that subject.
• You will also get a list of related materials by clicking on the “Similar Records” button at the top of a full display.

Call Number

• For non-fiction, SAPL uses the Dewey Decimal System.
• A call number search will provide a browsable list of all items in the collection in a specific subject area, or if there is an exact match, will take you to a full record.
• 005.72
• 752 Leland

Please note that at this time a bibliographic record is displayed for each item we have in our system-wide collection. To make this search more meaningful, you may scope by location and create a shelf list for all items in a specific subject area for a particular location.

Government Document Number

Federal Government publications are arranged by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification number. The example below shows how the SuDoc number C 61.34:987 is constructed.

This classification arranges materials by the authoring agency and type of publication. A SuDoc number search allows you to locate similar resources by an agency. Be sure to insert a space between letters and numbers unless there is intervening punctuation. No spaces precede or follow symbols.

• EP 5.8:L 46/999 Lead in your home: a parent’s reference guide.
• EP 5.8:
• EP

Here are the prefixes from the SuDoc classification numbers for some of the agencies that you may be interested in:

• A Agriculture Dept.
• C 3. Census Bureau (Commerce Dept.)
• D Defense Dept.
• E Energy Dept.
• ED Education Dept.
• GA General Accounting Office
• GS General Services Administration
• HE Health and Human Services Dept.
• I Interior Dept.
• I 19. U.S. Geological Survey (Interior Dept.)
• J Justice Dept.
• Ju Judiciary
• L Labor Dept.
• LC Library of Congress
• NAS NASA
• S State Dept.
• SI Smithsonian Institute
• T 22. Internal Revenue Service
• X, Y Congress
• Y.4 Congressional Committees

See the GPO Access Web Site for more information.

ISBN/ISSN
Type the ISBN or ISSN as it appears. Punctuation and spaces may be omitted.

• 0060255048

OCLC Number
SAPL obtains many bibliographic records from WorldCat (The OCLC Online Union Catalog) which is maintained by The Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC). OCLC assigns a control number to publications in WorldCat. OCLC numbers are usually entered without punctuation or special symbols.

• 2074446