Search Options

As with Google, the search input will accept multiple words or phrases.

Each word or phrase, separated by a space, will be treated as a distinct search term. The records returned will contain all the search terms submitted.

Phrases should be enclosed by double or single quotation marks (e.g. "Symphony in White" or 'Symphony in White').

The wildcard character * can be used with single terms, but not within phrases. For example, frank* will find 'Frank', 'Frankfurt' and 'Franklin'.

The search engine uses a 'stopword' list, meaning small common words are automatically ignored. So the inclusion of small words like 'the', 'be', 'are' and 'and' should be avoided unless they form part of a phrase.

Search terms are treated as case insensitive.

Words containing accented characters are treated as distinct within the index and the accented character will need to be included in the search input to find the same word in the record.

The results returned by searches use 'keywords in context' (KWIC) outputting. This displays each search term highlighted and surrounded by a short section of text on either side of the term from where it is located in the record. Each KWIC result is grouped by record and there may be several search results per record. Click on the title at the top of the KWIC results to view the catalogue record. The catalogue record will also highlight the search terms submitted.