Help - Advanced Search

Help - Index


Searching by Author

If you are going to use "as a phrase", "starts with" or "exact match" search on "Author", you will need to enter the author's surname first followed by the author’s first name.

Example 1

To do a search on Tim Winton, enter his name as "Winton Tim".

Reset Button

The reset button clears all the search terms and indexes back to the default settings.

Limit To

The options of limiting your search to specific material types can be made by selecting one or more of these boxes.

When Published

This drop down menu allows for searching on year of publication. If you select any option apart from 'any year', a separate text box appears, allowing you to define the date range.

Where Held

This section allows you to limit a search for items held in libraries in a state or territory of Australia. You can choose to search the holdings for states by selecting one or more checkboxes.

In my library or not in my library

You can restrict your search to items held at your library by ticking the check box next to 'in my library'.

Note that if you select 'in my library' and 'limit to' a state/territory, then the search result will include items in your library and available in the state/territory you selected.

To identify items that are in your library or in other libraries, look at the italicised text in brackets at the end of each brief entry on the Results screen, e.g. (at your library), (at 3 libraries including your library).

You can restrict the search to items not held in your library by ticking the check box next to 'not in my library'.

If you select a state and 'not in my library' then the search will be "NOT in the state AND NOT in my library".

Select Databases

To change the databases being searched, use the ‘Select databases’ button.

Searching In Advanced search

Complex queries can be constructed in Advanced search, using multiple drop-down options, connected by the Boolean operators 'and', 'or' and 'not'.

See also: Using Boolean Operators

This screen uses the combination of two pick-lists to determine what index the system uses. Users can select the index to be searched from a drop down menu, and construct searches without the need to know index codes and Common Command Language (CCL) commands, as in Command Search.

Example 1 – titles

Users can search for the Title "Harry Potter" Published in Australia in English.

The indexes are primary index sensitive, eg if searching for Title, the secondary index will display options relevant to that index ('all of these', 'any of these', 'as a phrase', starts with' and 'exact match'). If searching for Notes, the options are 'all of these', any of these' and 'as a phrase'.

Example 2 - languages

When searching for items in a particular language, the user can enter either language code or word.

If searching for French language material, you can select Language in the LHS box and either use "fre" or "french".

Example 3 – published in

When searching for items published in a particular state or country, you can enter either the location code or word.

For example, when looking for an item published in Tasmania, you can use either "tma" or "tasmania"

To run your search, either press the 'Enter' key or the 'Search' button.

Example 4 – number

Use the Number search in Libraries Australia to find any of the following types of numbers: ISBN, ISMN, ISSN, Amicus number, Immutable number and Music Publisher's number.

Searching Multiple Databases and the Summary screen

When you search on multiple databases, the number of results for each database appears in a Summary box on the left-hand side of the Summary results screen and also on the Results screen.

To quickly move between database results, return to the Summary screen and click on the number of results next to the name of the database you wish to look at. This will take you to the Results list for that database.

Searching with Apostrophes

Apostrophes can be left in or out e.g. do's and don'ts can be searched as either do's and don'ts OR dos and donts

It is advisable to use Advanced Search to search two or more terms if you:

Using Multiple Search Terms In Libraries Australia

If you are not sure whether the terms appear in the same field type you want a larger result set you are searching for items where you know in which fields the terms occur, or if you don't know which fields the terms are located, you have two different options using the Advanced Search function. You can:

Select "Any Keyword" from the first drop down options list In the search box type in your search terms, for e.g. estuary deakin Select "all of these" in the second drop down options list. "All of these" will search items where both the terms appear anywhere in the record.

Your search should look like this:

Any Keyword - estuary deakin - all of these

OR

Using two search boxes simultaneously you can:

  1. Select "Any Keyword" in the first drop down options list
  2. Enter each term separately in the search box
  3. Select "All of these" from the second drop down options list. "All of these" will search items where both the terms appear anywhere in the record.

Your search should look like this:

Any Keyword - estuary - all of these (in the first search box)
Any Keyword - deakin - all of these (in the second search box)

If you know in which fields the terms are located, choose the appropriate field name for each term For example:

  1. Select "Title" from the first drop down options list
  2. Enter the term estuary in the search box
  3. Go to the next search field and select "Notes" from the first drop down options list
  4. Enter the term deakin in the second search box.

Your search should look like:

Title - estuary (in the first search box)Notes - deakin (in the second search box)

Your search will retrieve only records where estuary appears in the Title field and deakin appears in a Note field.

For more information – see the Libraries Australia manual

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