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Library search help

Advanced search

The Advanced Search allows you to design searches that retrieve more focused results.

Use the Advanced Search to select search fields and incorporate Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT) between search terms in your queries. Apply filters before executing a search to further refine your query and limit the search results returned.

The Add a new line link supports the addition of up to 5 rows (7 rows total, including the four displayed by default).

Fields in Advanced Search

Select the arrow in the box saying "All Field" to see which fields are searchable via the Advanced Search

The Basic options are the ones most commonly used:

  • Any Field 
  • Title
  • Author/Creator 
  • Subject 
  • User tags
  • ISSN

Filtered and excluded results in advanced search

You can apply filters before executing a search to refine or expand your query:

  • Material Type: select from the list as appropriate to limit your search to books only, journals, articles, images and other types of media.
  • Language: select from the list as appropriate.
  • Start and End Dates: Use these fields to limit publication date to a specified range. Clicking on the arrow by day or month displays a list of numbers to select from. Enter your own date for the year. You can use a year, a month and year, or a day, month, and year.