Library and Internet Skills

Table of Contents

Boolean Logic, using 'and,' 'or,' and 'not' to refine your search

The Boolean operators, 'and,' 'or,' and 'not,' can be used in Expert Keyword to make your search more effective.

AND | OR | NOT | Phrase searching

Using 'and' to Combine Words

You can use 'and' to join keywords together and focus your search. This will find only records that include both words.

Examples:

The effect of media violence on children.
media and violence and children
Biography of the author Chinua Achebe.
achebe and biography
Criticism of the literature of Anita Desai.
desai and criticism
Bibliographies on AIDS.
AIDS and bibliography

This Venn diagram illustrates how the Library Catalogue finds only the records that include both 'media' and 'violence,' represented by the yellow area where the two over-lap.

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Using 'or' to Find Alternative Words

Sometimes more than one word can be used to refer to the same idea. These words can be synonyms, abbreviations, words with similar or related meanings. You can use 'or' to look for more than one of these words at the same time. This approach will find every record that has at least one of the words in it.

Examples:

  • work or employment or labour or labor or job
  • ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
  • seals or pinnepedia
  • women or female or or girls or sex or gender
  • seniors or aged or elderly
  • native or indians or aboriginal gay or homosexual

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Using 'not' to eliminate words

You can use 'not' to find records that do not include a word. For example, jurassic not park will find every record that includes jurassic, but does not include park. This would allow you to find books on the Jurassic era, but exclude anything to do with the novel "Jurassic Park." But be careful! It would also eliminate any books written by an author named Park, or describing Jurassic features in a park.

Because you can easily eliminate good books by mistake, 'not' should be used very judiciously.

Example:

To find books on the Jurassic era, but exclude anything on the novel, "Jurassic Park."

jurassic not park

This Venn diagram illustrates how the Library Catalogue finds only the records that include jurassic, but do not include park.

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Phrase Searching

If you enter two or more words together and place them within single quotation marks, the Library Catalogue will look for those words as a phrase. In other words, it will only find those records where the two words appear side by side.

Examples

'acid rain' 'assisted suicide' 'post colonial theory' 'art deco'

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