What are Keywords?

Keyword searching is the most common form of catalog searching and should be used when you need to know what materials the library contains on a specific topic. You should search by keyword if you are unsure about the author or title of an item. Keywords are significant words used to index information in a catalog, database or search engine. The keywords you choose for searching have a large impact on how many relevant records are retrieved.

When a basic keyword search is performed, the system locates words and phrases throughout the bibliographic record.

Keyword searches are especially useful when:

• you have incomplete title or author information
• your topic combines two or more concepts
• you do not know the exact subject headings for your topic
• you want to link terms from different parts of a record, such as an author's name and a word from a book title

To search by keyword, enter one or more search terms.Try enclosing phrases with quotation marks in order to search for the whole word.

• cyberpunk
• "noh drama"
• "employee assistance programs"

A search word or keyword can be truncated or shortened, to retrieve singular, plural and variant spellings. Use the symbol ? at the end of the keyword fragment.

• hypnot? (retrieves hypnotism, hypnotist, hypnotic, hypnotists)

To search for Copenhagen:

• cop? (will retrieve too many results)
• copen? (is a better search)

Boolean operators help to narrow or broaden your search. The most useful logical connectors are AND, OR, NOT.

AND finds records containing both terms. This narrows the search. For example:

• Picasso AND Guernica
• Europe AND Unification

OR finds records containing either one or both terms. This broadens the search. It can also be used to account for variant spellings. For example:

• Behavior OR Behaviour
• Global Warming OR Greenhouse Effect

NOT finds records containing the first term, but not the second term. This narrows the search. For example:

• Kidnapping NOT Lindbergh
• Textile Industry NOT Cotton

You can use more than one logical connector in the same search statement.

•  Migration AND Birds NOT Blue Jay

When to Use Parenthesis

Use Parenthesis when your search includes synonyms or to prioritize searches. (The search inside the parentheses is executed first)

• (lawyer or attorney) and malpractice
• (gun or weapon) and (control or law?)