Capitals versus lower case
Capitals and lower case letters can be used indiscriminately. The search results are independent of the use of capitals or lower case in the search term.
Articles and common words
It is only useful to use articles and other common words in a query when surrounded by double quotation marks together with other search terms.
Exact
The search system searches for exact matches. The search term letter will only result in entries with the word letter, not letters; and letterhead does not result in entries with the word head. By truncation searching (see below) variants can be found.
Truncation
When an exact search is not required, truncation searching can be used. A search term can be truncated with ? or *. The question mark replaces one symbol, the star more than one. Please note that the ? cannot be used when searching the remote databases.
Some examples:
Searching for publici?e produces entries with both publicise and publicize.
Searching for sermon* produces entries with the word sermones, sermonum, sermone etc.
Searching for a phrase
Searching for an exact phrase can be done by placing the required words within double quotation marks. For example: "postilla super" will only find entries with that exact phrase. If the words are not placed within quotation marks, entries will also be found in which the words are not adjacent.
Diacritics
It is not necessary to use diacritics (for example accented letters) in a query. Searching for facade will also find entries with the word façade.
Special symbols
Special symbols such as . , & @ ! // [ ] etc. are ignored.
Boolean operators
The Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT (case sensitive) can be used in combinations to narrow or broaden a search.
AND: only the entries that contain both words will be displayed
OR: all entries are displayed that contain (at least) one of the words
NOT: only those entries are displayed that contain the first word but not the second
The operators can be used within one search field (author, title word, keyword, any word), but can also denote the relationship between the various fields, for example to display entries that contain a particular title word in combination with a certain author. The search screen assumes 'AND' as the standard relation between search fields.
Limited number of search terms
Some remote indexes (accessed by Z39.50) accept only few number of search terms. Check the available Info for each database.
Use of special search fields
Under Advanced Search, the data in the search fields Subject, Shelfmark and Year vary with the individual databases. Check the available Info for each database.
Assisted searching with the CERL Thesaurus
When using Assisted Search (CERL Thesaurus), tick only the name variants that correspond to the intended person or place. Avoid ticking on Christian names if the family name is known. Tick few variants if remote index databases (Z39.50) are included in the search, or search these databases separately, with few variants at a time.
For more details, see the CERL Thesaurus Help button in the advanced search screen, or link directly to the CERL Thesaurus.