Searching is very easy with the library's search box! Just enter one or more words and hit enter. You'll get results that contain all of your search terms automatically - if you're familiar with Boolean searching, this means all of your search terms effectively have "AND" between them. 

There are a lot of other ways to search the library's resources! You can:

Search for a phrase

To search for a phrase, put it within quotation marks. If you don't use quotation marks, the system will search for those words individually, not next to each other.

Search for multiple words or phrases

Not sure what terms to use? You can search for resources that contain any (not all) of your search terms using "OR". You'll get results that contain either of your words/phrases.

Exclude words or phrases from your search results

You can remove certain words or phrases from your search results by using "NOT". Any results containing the word or phrase you've put after "NOT" won't be shown, so be careful when using "NOT"!

Search using wildcards

You can use wildcards to search for variations on words and phrases. For example:

• ? — enter a question mark to perform a single character wildcard search. For example, type wom?n to search for records that contain the strings woman, women, and so forth.

• * —enter an asterisk to perform a multiple character wildcard search. For example, type cultur* to search for records that contain strings, such as culture, cultural, and culturally.

Note that the system ignores wildcard characters placed at the beginning of search terms. For example, the system treats the search terms ?aying and *aying as if you had searched for aying.

Group terms within a search

You can use parentheses to group terms within a query. For example, to search for Shakespeare and either tragedy or sonnet, type the following in the search box:




 

You can sign in to your Library account from our home page (select "Sign In" from the upper right hand or from any guide with the footer at the bottom that says "Resources"  under "My Library Account".

Why Sign In?

Signing in allows you to automatically log in to the databases if you are off campus and to see what items you have checked out or requested from the library.