Searching the Online Catalog

Keyword and phrase searches look for each word individually. If more than one word is used in the search, each one is searched independently, not in relation to each other. Choose one search type: search everything, by author, title, periodical title, series, or by subject.

Browse searches present a list of authors, titles, series or subjects alphabetically with other terms in the same neighborhood. For example, browsing by the author "Roosevelt" will retrieve a list that includes the following authors:

     8) ROOSEVELT ROBERT BARNWELL 1829-1906 [1]
     9) ROOSEVELT SARA DELANO 1854-1941 HOUSEHOLD...
     10) ROOSEVELT THEODORE 1858-1919 [13]
     11) ROOSEVELT-CUSTER REGIONAL COUNCIL FOR...

The search includes any information in the catalog record. If more than one word is entered, the words must appear in the same area (e.g., author, title, series, or subject heading) but not necessarily in the same order as entered. Enter words in single quotation marks '...' to search for an exact phrase. Search Everything retrieves the greatest number of items, although their relevance to the search will vary.

Use a keyword search or browse if you're not sure how the author's name is found in the catalog. Punctuation is ignored.

Use a keyword search or browse if you're not sure of the exact title as used in the catalog.

Use Periodical Title to search for journals, magazines, newspapers, annual publications or other recurring titles only. Searching by Periodical Title rather than Title will help to limit results to desired items only. This search will retrieve information about the journal or series as a whole, and not records for individual titles or issues within it.

This search will identify volumes, issues and numbers published within the series. For example, a Series search for the U.S. Geological Survey's Professional Papers will retrieve several thousand titles. If you're interested in the series as a whole, search for Periodical Titles. It can be difficult to know how a series is represented in the catalog, so it's best to begin by using keyword or browse, rather than exact search, with series.

Titles in the DOI Library catalog are given Library of Congress Subject Headings. Searches that use subject headings assigned by a librarian, rather than keywords otherwise found in the title or other areas of the catalog record, can help to limit results to desired titles only and will help you identify needed titles faster.

Limit by a specific year or a range of years:

Use the pull-down list to select among languages.

Use the pull-down list to select among types.

Using Power Search, you can limit the search with the pull down list to change the "match on" option to:

Keyword: the word or phrase you type produces a list of materials matching your search terms regardless of their placement within the field(s) you are searching. The search terms need not be together at the beginning of the title, author, etc., you are searching.

Exact: the word or phrase you type produces a list of materials matching your search terms exactly, from beginning to end.

Partial: the word or phrase you type results in a list of materials matching your search terms exactly, from the beginning. Whereas "exact" requires that every word of the title be entered, with "partial" you can type in only the first part of the title and receive the desired results. In both exact and partial modes, initial articles of titles are automatically skipped in the matching process.

To display retrieved records, you can choose one of the following sorts:

None: most recently added materials appear first, regardless of publication date
Author: alphabetically by author's last name
Subject: alphabetically by first subject listed
Title: alphabetically by title
Old to New: publication date, with earliest date first
New to Old: publication date, with most recent date first

Use the pull down list to select among types.

Use the pull down list to select among locations.

Certain words are ignored in searching:

Remember too that the words used as operators: and, or, not, same, with, near -- can't be used as search terms unless they are enclosed in double quotation marks.

To search for a stop word, enclose it in double quotation marks. For example: "for" whom "the" bell tolls.

Either mark the "Exact" radio button on the Quick Search screen or surround multiple words to be searched only as a phrase with single quotes.

Enclose stop words or operators included in the exact phrase to be searched with double quotes.

Use the dollar sign truncation symbol ($) if you don't know how to spell your search term, or if you want to use various forms of the word. For example:

If too many terms qualify for a truncated search, you will see a message, Item not found perhaps the following list will help. If this happens, a number entered to the right of the $ limits the number of characters replaced by the $. For example:

Use the question mark wildcard symbol (?) for a single character substitution. For example, Nava?o retrieves both "Navaho" and "Navajo."

If you do not enter any operator between search words, the system automatically supplies "same."

Combine search terms in a number of ways using a variety of operators:

and: both terms must appear somewhere in the same record
or: either one or both terms must appear somewhere in the record
not: the second term must not appear in the same record as the first term
xor: either one or the other term, but not both, must appear in the record
same: terms must be in the same field (author, title, etc.)
with: terms must be in the same sentence in the same field
near: terms must be next to one another in any order
adj: terms must be next to one another in the order that they were entered

For example, the search "wolves and yellowstone" would retrieve only records that contain both words, while the search "wolves not yellowstone" would retrieve only records that contain the word "wolves" but not the word "yellowstone."