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Quick Searches

If your library uses the portal page as the home page, you can quickly search the library catalog directly from the portal page. Your library may offer either of two types of quick searching. With one type, you type a word or words, select a limiter if you wish, and click Go. See "Do a quick search with Limit by". With the other type, you type a word or words and click a search button. See "Do a quick search with search buttons". You may also be able to click a picture of a best-seller to launch a search for the title. See "Search from a book jacket image".

Do a quick search with Limit by

Follow these steps to do a quick search of the library catalog from the portal page if your library offers an option to limit your search.

  1. Type a word or words in the Quick Library Search box.
    • If you type more than one word, your results may include materials with the words in any order. If you want to find the words in the exact order, begin the phrase with double quotation marks.
    • You can type a part of a word and use a wildcard character. The wildcard character asterisk (*) represents the rest of the word. For example, if you type King*, the results include words such as King, Kingsley, and Kingford. The question mark (?) represents exactly one character. For example, wom?n finds woman and women.
    • Common articles and prepositions-such as a, an, and, for, from, in, of, on, the, to, and with-are usually ignored in searching and sorting. Single characters are also typically ignored. If you want to include these words, enclose your search words in double quotation marks or do an exact phrase search. See "Phrase and Exact Phrase Searches".
    • Punctuation is usually ignored. However, you can include the following characters if they immediately precede or follow a letter or number (no space between): + # % $
    • If you leave this box blank and just select an option in the Limit by box (see step 2), the search is launched and your results include all the materials that fit your Limit by selection.
  2. If you want to find only a certain kind of material, click the arrow symbol in the Limit by box, and select an option from the list. Your library may provide additional limiters, such as availability.

Example:
If you want to find only DVDs, select DVD in the Limit by list.

  1. Click Go.
    • If the search is successful, information about titles is displayed in the search results list.
    • If no matches are found, you see a message. You may also see a Did you mean suggestion. You can click the suggestion to search for the suggested term.

Note:
You may see a more link next to the suggestion. Click the link to see more suggestions.

  1. To work with the results, do any of the following actions:
Related Information

Do a quick search with search buttons

Follow these steps to do a quick search of the library catalog from the portal page if your library offers quick search buttons.

  1. Type a word or words in the Quick library search box.
    • If you type more than one word, your results may include materials with the words in any order. If you want to find the words in the exact order, begin the phrase with double quotation marks.
    • You can type a part of a word and use a wildcard character. The wildcard character asterisk (*) represents the rest of the word. For example, if you type King*, the results include words such as King, Kingsley, and Kingford. The question mark (?) represents exactly one character. For example, wom?n finds woman and women.
    • Common articles and prepositions-such as a, an, and, for, from, in, of, on, the, to, and with-are usually ignored in searching and sorting. Single characters are also typically ignored. If you want to include these words, enclose your search words in double quotation marks or do an exact phrase search. See "Phrase and Exact Phrase Searches".
    • Punctuation is usually ignored. However, you can include the following characters if they immediately precede or follow a letter or number (no space between): + # % $
  2. Click a search button to start the search.

    You may see any of these buttons:

    • Anywhere - Looks for your text in anywhere in the library catalog.

Note:
If you type search text and press ENTER, without clicking a search button, a keyword search starts.

Note:
If no matches are found, you see a message. You may also see a Did you mean suggestion. You can click the suggestion to search for the suggested term. You may also see a more link next to the suggestion. Click the link to see more suggestions.

  1. To work with the results, do any of the following actions:
Related Information

Search from a book jacket image

You may see a picture of a book in the center pane of the portal page. (You may have to scroll the page down to see the picture.) The pictured book is taken from current best-seller lists, and changes every time you return to or refresh the portal page. You can search for the pictured book in the library catalog, and if the title is not found, you can ask the library to purchase it. Follow these steps to search for a title from an image on the portal page.

  1. Click the book jacket image to launch the search.

    If the search is successful, information about the title is displayed. See "Viewing Title Information". If the title is in the catalog but currently unavailable, you may be able to request or purchase it. See "Obtaining Materials".

    If no matches in the catalog are found, the purchase request form appears.

  2. To ask the library to purchase the title, type a note in the box, if you wish, and click Send.

    The request is sent to the library by e-mail, and a confirmation message is displayed.

  3. Click Library Info to return to the portal page.
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