Searching: Advanced BCU Library Search

The techniques on the previous pages about Library Search work the same way in the BCU Advanced Library Search.

The main difference is you can combine multiple lines with a finer control over the actual search.
 

The added value of the advanced search lies in these two options:

• Select the index field to search
  (Any, Title, Author, Subject,  ISBN)
• Select how to match the search term
  (contains, contains exact phrase, starts with, equals exact phrase)

For example, let's improve this simple search (~20 results) where we know the author's name and some keywords from the title:

"Star Trek" AND doctor AND Grech

With the advanced search you can specify that the title contains "Star Trek" and "doctor", and that "Grech" is the author's name (~15 results).

⮑ Title contains "Star Trek" AND doctor

⮑ AND Author/Creator contains Grech

In advanced mode, each additional search line starts with a Boolean operator you select in a drop-down menu.

You can mix AND, OR or NOT and search symbols as you would in a simple search.
 

For instance:

⮑ Any field contains exact phrase Star Trek

⮑ AND Any field contains doctor OR captain

➡︎ This will start looking for anything at all about doctors or captains, then apply the rest of the search top to bottom. So, it's looking for documents that contain both Star Trek and anything about captains or doctors.
 

The corresponding  simple search string is:

"Star Trek" AND (doctor OR captain)

Let's add a third line starting with NOT to exclude multiple plot characters:

⮑ Any field contains exact phrase Star Trek
⮑ AND Any field contains doctor OR captain
⮑ NOT Any field contains phlox OR crusher 

➡︎ Again, the search starts with OR, looking for anything with the words "doctor" or "captain" and Dr Phlox or Dr Crusher, then it returns to the top line and searches for the phrase "Star Trek" and lists only results that also include "doctor" or "captain" but  then excludes any document containing Dr Phlox or Dr Crusher.

The corresponding  simple search string is:

"Star Trek" AND (doctor OR captain) NOT (phlox OR crusher)

Searching is a skill to learn. Start off simple, and add new keywords, phrases or operators in to build the search further.

You may not get the results you want immediately:

• Try different words/phrases that mean the same thing.
• Try moving operators around or grouping different words in brackets until you hit on the right combination.
• Try a simple search but use some of the other brilliant features that most specialist search engines and databases have, such as subject filters! On the BCU Library Search, you can find these on the left-hand side of the results page.
• Rather than construct one huge, complex search that covers multiple concepts, try more searches with fewer keywords. It's unlikely that you'll hit on one search that covers every aspect of your assignment brief - break it down and think about what you'd like to write before thinking about keywords for each section, paragraph or argument.

Finally - don't be afraid to ask for help! Support is available on 24/7 chat and we are happy to help you learn how to search.