How to Use Search

With so many options, it can take some practice to learn how to use Search and find what you need. But once you've got it down, searching will be so much easier! 

One thing you should know is that the new Search uses a Smart Search that is significantly smarter than the old one. It may not seem that way if the item you are looking for doesn't show up first, but keep in mind someone using the same search term who is looking for something else. The new Search is very flexible and better allows for your patrons to find items without needing to know the exact title.

But... what do you do when Search isn't finding what you're looking for?

Tips for Searching

• Try a Smart Search first. Just remember that titles, authors, and series are going to hold the most weight. Also, term frequency will be taken into account. See Search Basics to learn more. 
  See how fields are weighted.

  Title	50
  Author	15
  Series	10
  Subject	1
  Genre	1
  Content Notes	1
  Bibliographic	1
  General Notes	1
  Summary Notes	1
  Award Notes	1
  LCCN / ISBN	1
  Curriculum	1
  Interest	1

• Use specific Search Types. If you know the exact title, change the Search Type to Titles. Know the author but not the title? Change it to Authors.

• Use  Sort and  Filter. Use these result list controls to change up the order and type of results.

• Try a "begins-with" search. Smart Search looks for an exact match, but that may not be helpful if you're not sure how to spell what you're looking for. If your search query doesn't return any results, click Try a "begins with" search, or add quotes and an asterisk to your query ("term*") and tap enter.
  
  

• Combine search terms. Having trouble finding a book with a common title, such as It? Search by title and author (e.g. "it stephen king") to get more exact results.

• Use Advanced Search. If you need something really specific, use Advanced Search. Be aware that combining two words is automatically an AND in regular searching; don't use OR between words that mean different things.

Search Tips for Librarians

Librarians and administrators can make things easier for patrons using Search in a few ways:

• Use lists and pre-made search strings. If patrons need to find a specific type of book for a class project, teachers and librarians can create a list or pre-made search string to make things easier to find. Post the strings Then, patrons will only be looking at results that meet your requirements.

• Set up spell check. Turn on automatic spell check on each of your Researcher stations. Check out the "Elehpants?"—Spell Check for Researcher tip for instructions on enabling spell check on Google Chrome.

• Increase the number of shown results. Set your default Search results to 100 items in Preferences > Researcher > Search > Results List tab > Initial Search Results Returned.

General searching tips
if you know the title and it still isn't coming up, include the author in your search
stuff like they talk about on

https://nsufl.libguides.com/databasetips

http://emory.libanswers.com/faq/43699

• keywords/concepts
• start with broad searches and then start to narrow down and limit
• phrase searching–does this work in Alexandria?
• truncate root words
• subject searching (Alex specific?) 
• field searching