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WorldCat Discovery User Guide

Search any resource in the library (Basic Search)

  • By default, a basic search is a "keyword" search.
  • Enter a keyword in the search box and click "Search".
  • A keyword search uses one or more complete words that are contained anywhere in the item's record, including titles, notes, abstracts, summaries, descriptions, and subjects.
  • You can enter words in upper or lower case; if you use multiple words, you can enter them in any order.
  • Punctuation is ignored during searching.

    Basic search example
     

 

  • Use the filters on the left-hand side of the web page to make your search more specific if necessary.
  • You can filter by
    • Library (Choose your Library)
    • Limit to Full Text, Open Access, Non-Fiction, or Peer Reviewed material.
    • Material type, e.g. eBook, Printed Book, Theses, Dissertation, etc.
    • Year of Publication
    • Subject
    • Author/Creator
    • Databases
    • Language

      Basic search filter

Using Boolean operators to search

  • An expert search may include Boolean operators.
  • This search may be executed in any search box, such as the basic search box or the Advanced Search screen.
  • When using Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) in a search, these must be capitalised. Search terms with Boolean operators are processed in left-to-right order.

    Basic search using Boolean operators

 

Boolean Operators explained

A search query consists of all the keywords you identified during the topic analysis of your assignment/paper's title.

E.g., if you are a student in Communication Studies and the topic of your assignment/paper is  "The role that political propaganda plays in mass media"

you might construct your search query along any one of the following lines:

  1. (mass media OR broadcasting OR radio OR television) AND propaganda AND (politic* OR government*)
  2. propaganda AND ("freedom of speech" OR "freedom of the press" OR "right to know") AND (media OR broadcast* OR journal*)
  3. role AND propaganda AND "mass media"

There are three operators for approximate term queries:

  • asterisk(*)
  • question mark(?)
  • hash sign(#)

Truncation (*)

  • Add to the end of the word to retrieve variant endings.
  • Enter the first three characters of the term (at a minimum) and follow with an asterisk (*).
  • Example:
    • securit* retrieves results for security, securities, and securitization
    • connect* retrieves results for connect, connection and connectivity

Wildcard (# and ?)

  • Enter the first three characters of the term (at a minimum) and follow with a wildcard.
  • WorldCat Discovery supports using two wildcard characters, the hash sign (#) and the question mark (?).
  • Use the hash (#) sign to represent a single character.
  • Use the question mark (?) to match missing (zero) and up to nine characters, including no additional characters.
  • Example:
    • wom#n retrieves results for woman and women
    • enclop?dia retrieves results for encyclopedia and encyclopaedia 
    • res?4tion retrieves results for respiration, restoration and reservation

Besides the indexes (search options) in the dropdown menus, e.g. author, title, keyword, etc., you can also search the unique indexes in the list below.

 

Most Used
Index name Use
Barcode bq: 
Call Number (Shelf number) nu:
Citation ci: 
Government Document Number gn:
ISBN bn:
ISSN in:

Example:

  • To search for the shelf number (call number):
    Call number search