Keyword Searching

Keyword searching is the most flexible search method available. The keyword method will look for names, words, or phrases in almost all fields of the record (author, title, subjects, publisher, contents, and notes).

For example, a keyword search for cloning would retrieve all records containing the term cloning in the title, plus it will also search the subject area of an item's record.

Keyword searching is a powerful search option to use when:

What if I only remember a few words of a title?

In a previous search, we showed you how to search for a book if you only remembered the beginning of the title. What if you remember one or two words of a title, but they aren't at the beginning? A keyword search is perfect for this.

Let's say you know a title contains the words COLOR and PARACHUTE, but you don't remember anything else. If you type in:

the book, What Color is Your Parachute: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters & Career Changers, would be retrieved.

Keyword searches are also one way to find audiovisual materials. For instance, if you wanted to see if the library has a video of the novel, The Great Gatsby, you could type in:

The "?" at the end of video is a truncation symbol. We will see later how this can be useful in searching for items.
 

Note: You can also find audiovisual materials through the advanced search feature in WebPAC. Ask a librarian to show you how to do this.

If you wanted to find a recording by Louis Armstrong, either audiotapes

or  CD-ROMs, you would type in:
 

 

The word AND, in the previous examples, acts as a Boolean Operator. Continue on to find other ways to use Boolean Operators.