Searching the Catalog: Tips and Tricks: Keyword/Relevance Search

Keyword searches are an easy and intuitive way to start your research. This is the default setting for the basic catalog search box.

The catalog automatically sorts your search results in terms of relevancy, which links to location and frequency of search terms within the record. If an item has your keyword in the title, it may be sorted before an item that only has a passing mention in a note. Keep in mind that relevancy may not be the most effective way to sort your results! It may be helpful to sort instead by date or by author.

Use some of these tips to enhance your keyword searching:

• Quotation marks around phrases will allow you to search the phrase as a single unit: "interior design"
• Use + to mark essential terms: +solar
• Use * to mark important terms: *adaptive
• Use ? to truncate: architect? would include "architecture", "architects", "architectural", etc.

Example: +wright house? "united states"