The Library Catalog - Your Doorway to a World of Informative & Intellectual Resources

Search Tips for the Library Catalog

Basic Search

The search is a general keyword search with all words entered needing to appear somewhere in the record for it to show in the search results.

Use the drop-down menu to limit your keyword search to:

  • All Fields
  • Title
  • Journal Title
  • Title Begins With
  • Author
  • Author Browse (A-Z) Sorted by Name
  • Author Browse (A-Z) Sorted by Title
  • Subject
  • Subject Browse (A-Z)
  • Call Number
  • Publisher

Put exact phrases in quotes: "financial aid"

Use the facets on the left hand side to further refine your results by date, language, format, etc.

Truncation and wildcards are not currently supported in basic search. Usually, search terms with common suffixes are automatically searched. For example, a search for star will include starsstarred and starring.

Browse

To find books and other materials, browse through an alphabetical list of authors by name, authors sorted by title, and subjects, or browse through a list of related titles by call number. Below are some tips and examples for constructing effective browses:

Author Browse (A-Z) Sorted by Name

Author Browse (A-Z) Sorted by Title

Subject Browse (A-Z)

Call Number Browse

  • Enter a complete or partial call number. The results will be a list of items on related topics. For example: PR 5400
  • You can find additional information on call number browse in the Cornell University Library LibGuide.

Advanced Search

Using the first dropdown in each row, select how the terms in the search box are related to each other for the search you want to do:

  • all: You want search results that contain every word in this search box, but you don't care whether they're next to each other, or what order they come in.
  • any: You want search results that contain any of the words in this search box, but you don't care if some are missing.
  • begins with: You only want search results where at least one field begins with the words in this search box.
  • phrase You only want search results that contain all the words in this search box, in this particular order.

When using multiple rows, use the radio buttons to indicate how the terms in each row relate to each other for the search you want to do.

  • and: You want search results that contain the terms from both rows. This will tend to narrow your search.
  • or: You want search results that contain the terms from either row, This will tend to broaden your search.
  • not: You want search results that specifically don't include the terms from this row. This will tend to narrow your search.

When using multiple rows, put the terms connected with or before the terms connected with and or not. The Advanced Search processes rows sequentially, top to bottom, so you want to broaden your search fully before you start to narrow it. For example:

Results can be filtered by date, language, format, etc., using the facets on the left side of the page after submitting the search.

Usually, search terms with common suffixes are automatically searched. For example, a search for star will include starsstarred and starring.

Keywords can be limited to more fields in the Advanced Search:

  • All Fields
  • Title
  • Journal Title
  • Author
  • Subject
  • Call Number
  • Series
  • Publisher
  • Place of Publication
  • Publisher Number/Other Identifier
  • ISBN/ISSN
  • Notes
  • Donor Name