From the course: Information Literacy
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Search terms and methods: Boolean searching
From the course: Information Literacy
Search terms and methods: Boolean searching
- Sometimes even with keywords and controlled vocabulary or subject heading searches we still need additional tools to broaden or narrow a search. To do so, you can use special boolean terms in conjunction with your keywords and controlled vocabulary phrases. Just like controlled vocabularies, boolean terms were developed to help guide online searches in the days before keyword searching became that common. These are the boolean terms: and, or, and not. They are small simple words but they are powerful search tools. Using the and operator narrows your search by instructing the catalog or database to search for all of the catalog records containing the first word, then for all of the catalog records containing the second word. This search will only display records that contain both words. For example, Picasso and Painting. This is a visual of what you are looking for, material that are both about Picasso, and Painting. The or operator broadens your search to include either terms that…