SEARCH TIPS FOR THE 
ONLINE CATALOG  

The online catalog (IPAC) contains records for all of the materials that are held in King’s College Library, including books, periodicals, videos, CDs, and DVDs. You may search for the items by author, title, series, keyword, or subject. 

A general keyword search is the broadest way to search. It retrieves more hits, but some of them might be irrelevant for your purposes, because this type of search retrieves records that mention the keywords in an insignificant way. A subject search looks for items that are specifically about the particular topic. It is more specific than a keyword search and reduces the number of irrelevant “hits.” For best results, try searching in several different fields.


The following tips are basic principles that can help you to have successful catalog searches.  

                                 1.  Use truncation or a wildcard to retrieve variant spellings or different endings:       

*

The truncation symbol replaces any number of characters in the specific position in the word. It is useful when a word has more than one spelling, a variety of endings, or when you are unsure of the correct spelling. It is often used at the end of the root form of a word, as shown in the first example: 

Examples: Educa* will retrieve educate, education, educable, educator, etc.  
                  Behav*r will retrieve behavior and behaviour  

?

The wildcard symbol, a question mark, replaces one character in the specified position in the word.

Examples: Wom?n will retrieve women or woman.
                 Man? in an author search retrieves Mann, Mani, Mang, Mane, etc.  

                                   2.     Use Boolean operators (and, or, and not) to limit or expand your search.*


and

 

When you retrieve too many hits:

Use and to make the search more specific by limiting results to articles containing more than one key word.

Example: endangered species and zoos

or

When you retrieve too few hits:

Use or to expand your search by searching for synonyms or variant word forms. 

Example: dogs or canines

 and & or
("nesting") 		To use both and and or :

Use parentheses around words joined by or, if you are also using and to join other terms. 

Example: hazing and (fraternities or sororities)
 

 



not

 

When you retrieve too many hits that use a term in the wrong context:

Use not to exclude records with the specified term.

Example: foundations not charitable

Note: Use not carefully. You might block information that could be helpful to your search. If the term you are blocking contains two or more words, put them in parentheses.  

Example: reading instruction not (high school)  


* Note: The operators (and – or – not) may be used only in keyword searches. They will not work well in subject searches.


If you need assistance, click on the Help link in the upper right corner of the search screen, or speak with a reference librarian.