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Basic Search

Basic Search

You can search very easily in the LocatorPlus Catalog. Just type one or more words that you are looking for and click the Search button. Search buttonIf you enter multiple words, the LocatorPlus Catalog will return results that contain all the specified terms.
You can also use the Search by Voice function to speak your search. Search by voice

The Resource Type Filter ribbon under the search bar allows you to narrow your search results by selecting one of the main resources types. Or you can use the All option (default) and refine your search results later.

Once you are familiar with the basic LocatorPlus Catalog search, you can explore the additional features available in the Refine your results panel and Advanced Search options to make your searches more precise and to get more useful results.

You can search for ISBNs and ISSNs with or without hyphens, but if you are not getting expected results with hyphens, try your search again without hyphens.

Search Operators

You can do more than just a basic search with the Search panel by placing the following operators between words or phrases: AND, OR, and NOT. Searches with multiple operators are processed in the following order, from left to right:

  1. ( ) – Parentheses allow you to group search terms and alter the order of precedence.
  2. AND and NOT – left-to-right precedence is used in case of multiple operators.
  3. OR – left-to-right precedence is used in case of multiple operators.

Although operators provide greater control over the search, the full search string is not treated as a phrase. For example, the following queries are treated differently even though they appear to be almost identical:

  • Public health ethics – LocatorPlus Catalog treats the entire query as a phrase and returns results in which all of the words may be closer together.
  • Public health AND ethics – LocatorPlus Catalog treats public health and ethics as separate phrases and returns results in which both phrases may not be as close together.

LocatorPlus Catalog assumes that you are searching for all the words unless you type OR or NOT between words and phrases.

Searches are not case-sensitive.

To become familiar with the operators and get the best results from your searches, refer to the following sections:

Searching For a Phrase

To search for an exact phrase, type quotation marks around the phrase. You can combine both words and phrases in your search.

  • If you do not enclose the phrase with quotation marks, the system will find items that contain the individual words in the phrase, regardless of whether these words are located next to each other in the order specified.
  • If a comma is used to separate words in a list, the comma must be followed by a space. Otherwise, the system will consider the comma to be part of the word and return fewer results than expected.

For example, to search for home healthcare as one term, type the following in the search box:

Searching for a phrase