Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Excluding Words or Phrases

You can exclude items that contain specific words or phrases. To do so, type NOT and then type the word or phrase to exclude.

If you search for words or phrases without specifying OR or NOT, LocatorPlus Catalog assumes that you are searching for all of the specified words or phrases.

For example, to search for items with the word RN and exclude any of these items with the word nurse, type the following in the search box:

Excluding words or phrases

If parentheses are not used for a query that contains multiple operators, it is recommended that you use the NOT operator last to ensure that results are excluded from the entire query. For example: public AND medicine NOT community. If it is necessary to place the NOT operator elsewhere, make sure that you enclose the operation with parentheses. For example: (public NOT medicine) OR community.