FirstSearch:  An Online Introduction

Advanced Searching:  Putting It All Together

So far we have been learning about Basic Searching -- now we will explore Advanced Searching.

Advanced Searching has all the features of Simple Searching, and makes it easier to do a complicated Search.

For our example we'll use the WorldCat database.
WorldCat has millions of Records of books, audio-visual materials, and more.
It can help you find books that your Library might not own.

From the Simple Search screen we click the "Advanced Search" button.

Now we are at the Advanced Search screen.

We'll look for books on the history of women's sports.

1.  We type our first term "sports" in the "Word, Phrase" box.
2.  We choose the Index to Search in.  We'll choose the "Subject Hdgs (keyword)" Index by clicking on it.
3.  Now we choose our Connector.  We'll click on "And" because we want to retrieve Records with ALL our terms.
4.  In the next "Word, Phrase" box we'll type our second term "women".
5.  We choose to search for this term in the "Subject Hdgs (keyword)" Index too.
6.  We choose the "And" connector again.
7.  We type our third term "history" in the next "Word, Phrase" box.
8.  We'll choose the "Title (keyword)"  index to search for this word in the title of books.

Now we can put Limits on this Search.   Let's limit our Search to books in English published after 1980.
9.  In the "Years" box we type 1980-1998.
10.  In the Type box we click on "Books".
11.  In the Language box we click on "English".

12. And finally we click the "Start Search" button.

FirstSearch will retrieve Records for:

• English-language books

• published after 1980

• that have the word history in their titles

• and have the terms sports and women in their Subject Headings

This Search retrieves 48 Records. 

Next:  Keyword Indexes vs. Exact Phrase Indexes

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