Answered By: Joe Montibello
Last Updated: Jun 21, 2023     Views: 48

Given the population that the Library's resources are meant to serve, a default keyword search does provide a lot more results than you may have received in the past. There are a couple of solutions to help you very quickly refine the results.

  1. Begin on the Library's homepage, click "Books" and enter your search terms. This limits the results to books and ebooks. If you know the exact title, enclose it in quotes.
  2. Another option is to limit your search using the facets in the left column on the results page. Clicking the actual facet word will apply filters immediately. To choose multiple filters, select the checkbox next to a facet, then click the "Apply Filters" button. In the image below, "Held by library" under "Show Only" and "Books" under "Format" were selected. This dropped a list of thousands down to four. Refine results using facets for "held by library" and "books"
  3. A third option would be to perform an Advanced Search. Next to the search box on the main search page, click the "Advanced Search" link. Below, I'm searching for "Title contains 'all the light'" AND "Author/Creator contains "Doerr" AND material type is "Books." This returned the one item in our collection.
    Advanced search for book title

It is completely understandable that the default search results for keywords can seem overwhelmingly broad, but please give these suggestions a try and let us know if you have further questions.

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