Searching the Library Catalog

Basic Searches

The Simple Search screen allows you to perform a variety of searches. You may specify the search terms and the type of search you wish to do (Author, Title, Subject Headings, etc.). You may also put limits on your search. The different search types are as follows:

Search Type	Hints	Examples
Keyword	* use quotation marks (") to search a phrase * use a question mark (?) to search for different beginnings, endings, and internal characters of a term * use the plus sign (+) to require a term * use an exclamation mark (!) to exclude a term * use an asterisk (*) to indicate an important term	"united states" browser?; ?natal; wom?n +lincoln +"civil war"
AND, OR, NOT (Boolean)	*connect different search terms using the operators and, or, and not *use quotation marks (") to search for a phrase *use a question mark (?) to search for different endings of a term	history and kansas "civil war" and south? females or women or girls windows not microsoft
Author	*authors may be people, organizations, or conferences *search the last name first when searching for a personal author *do not include punctuation *limits do NOT apply in Author searches	hemenway robert modern language association
Title	*enter as much of the title as you know *do not include any initial articles such as a, an, the, das, la *do not include punctuation	grapes of wrath jayhawker
Journal Title	*enter as much of the title as you know *do not include initial articles such as a, an, the, das, la, etc. *do not include punctuation	new york times journal of politics sports illustrated
Subject Headings	*subject heading searches use the Library of Congress or National Library of Medicine's terminology - ask a librarian if you are having trouble *limits do NOT apply in Subject Heading searches	economics kansas history 1854-1861 teenagers employment
Call Number	*enter as much of the call number as you know *you may search any type of call number: Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress, SuDoc, etc. *if more than one letter/number combination appears after the classification part of the number, you must leave a space before the second letter *enter a space before a date *limits do NOT apply in call number searches	PS 129 .A55 823.08 HE 20.6502:AC 9 Z695.1.A37 O85 1992
Series Titles	*use this for searching series titles and other uniform title fields (that is, fields containing a standardized form of a title that may appear in different ways in the actual work *this search, unlike the "title" search, retrieves cross references to uniform titles that help you redirect your search to the established title *do not include initial articles such as a, an, the, le, la, ein, and others depending upon language limits do NOT apply in Series/Uniform Title searches	bible o.t. psalms english advances in computer science series

To perform a search, you must do the following:

1. Enter the words you want to find in the Search for box.
2. Select the type of search that you want to perform by choosing a search type from the Search by list.
3. Click the Search button to execute the search. You may also click the Reset button to clear the information entered into the page.

Optional: To place limits on your search, you may either 1) select a limit from the Limit Search menu or, 2) click the Set Other Search Limits button and choose from the entire list of limits.

There are also a number of keyword field codes which can be incorporated in your keyword searches:

Keyword Field Code	Field / type of search	Example
NKEY	Author names	nkey johnson
CKEY	Corp/Conf names (authors & subjects)	ckey biology
DISS	Dissertation / Thesis note	diss physiology
GENR	Genre heading	genr horror
ISBN	ISBN	isbn 0029166756
ISSN	ISSN	issn "0270-3793"
GKEY	Keyword anywhere	gkey baseball
OPUS	Music opus / thematic index #	opus 23
MUPN	Music Publisher's number	mupn "MHS 3700"
NOTE	Notes (including Table of Contents)	note "letterbox format"
NUMB	Other numbers (OCLC, etc.)	numb 3452
PKEY	Personal names (authors & subjects)	pkey "kinski klaus"
PUBD	Publication Date	pubd 1861
PUBL	Publisher name & location	publ Mainz
SERI	Series	seri "postmodern studies"
SKEY	Subject headings	skey "santa fe trail"
TPTK	Title page title	tptk "beethoven's kiss"
TKEY	Titles (all)	tkey treecreepers

Just like with other keyword searches, you also can:

• search for phrases by putting the words into quotation marks
• combine more than one of these searches with "and," "or," and "not"

1. tkey "american history"
2. nkey johnson and tkey vietnam
3. nkey mitchell and tkey "gone with"
4. seri chemistry and nkey pauling