Searching the NEOS Libraries Catalogue

• Basic Search
  • Optional Limits
  • Limiting to eBooks/eJournals
• Search Conventions
  • Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT)
  • Using Different Boolean Operators in the Same Search Statement
  • Positional Operators
  • Truncation/Wildcards
  • Stop Words
  • Phrase Searching
  • Punctuation
  • Searching for Non-English Materials
  • Searching with Field Labels
• Reviewing and Managing Records
  • Reviewing
  • Marking Records
  • Printing, Saving, Emailing and Exporting Records
• Advanced Search
  • Optional Limits
  • Browsing by Call Number
• My Account
• Reserve Desk

Basic Search

The basic search provides two modes of searching: Keyword and Starting With.

• A Keyword search allows you to search for any records (or a specific field within a record) that contain the term(s) you entered.
• A Starting With search allows you to browse a list of entries starting with the term you entered.

By default, the catalogue searches the complete record for terms entered, but searches can be limited to a specific field by changing the pull-down menu to one of following fields within a catalogue record: Title, Subject, Author, Periodical Title, Series and Call Number.

• If you limit to Title, your terms will also be searched in the Periodical Title and Series fields.
• Names of editors and coporate authors, e.g. Rand Corporation, can be searched in the Author field.
• If you will be ‘mixing and matching’ terms from different fields, e.g. an author name and words from a title, use Any Field to complete your search.
• If you are searching for a topic, try Any Field first. If you retrieve too many irrelevant titles, try limiting your search to Subject.
• Call Number searches can only be carried out in the Keyword mode in the basic search. If you wish to do a Starting With search of a call number in order to browse titles around a specific call number, used the Advanced Search.

Optional Limits

• Library: allows you to limit by single library or to a library group/system, e.g. all University of Alberta libraries, all Grant MacEwan libraries, all Alberta Government Libraries. Library group names appear at the top of the Library pull-down menu; individual libraries appear below the separation line on this menu.
• Year: you can limit to a specific year or range of years as follows:
  • To limit items published in 2011, enter: 2011
  • To limit to items published from 2005 through 2011, enter: 2005-2011
  • To limit to items published prior to 2000, i.e. 1999 and earlier, enter: < 2000
  • To limit to items published after 2000, i.e. 2001 and later, enter: >2000
  • To limit to items published in 2000 or earlier, enter: <=2000
  • To limit to items published in 2000 or later, enter: >=2000
• Format: allows you to limit to:
  • Books - will retrieve books, government documents and reports available in print or online)
  • Computer Data Files - generally, this would limit to CD Rom publications
  • Manuscripts – includes unpublished manuscripts held in special collections
  • Maps
  • Music/Sound – will retrieve musical scores and sound recordings available in LP, cassette, CD or online formats
  • Periodicals/Serials - will retrieve periodicals, journals, serials, magazines and newspapers available in print or online
  • Videos/Visual Materials – will retrieve videos in VHS, DVD and online format and visual materials, e.g. art reproductions, posters, etc, in print and online format.
• Language: allows you to limit by language. If no language is selected, materials in all languages will be retrieved.
• Sort by:
  • The default sort order is to list the last item entered in the catalogue first. Generally, this results in more recently published material being listed first.
  • The sort order can be changed to: Author, Subject, Title, Relevance, Old to New (i.e. older publication dates first), New to Old (i.e. newer publication dates first).
  • Note, however, that sorting can only be applied after the search is complete and when 500 or fewer records are retrieved.

Limiting to eBooks/eJournals

The most accurate way to limit a search result to online material (eBooks, eJournals, web documents) is to use the ‘internet’ location for your home library (if available). For example, if I am a Grant MacEwan student or staff member, I can limit my search results to online material by using the Grant MacEwan – Internet limit. Likewise, a University of Alberta affiliate, can use the University of Alberta Internet limit.

Search Conventions

If no Boolean operator is included in a search statement, terms are ANDed together but only records where all terms appear in the same field will be retrieved (although not necessarily side by side).

For example:

The search statement nursing history canada will retrieve any items where all three of these terms appear in the title, or if all three of these terms appear in a subject term field or if all three of these terms appear in the content field. However, it will not retrieve any items where the words nursing and history appear in the title but not in a subject term and the word canada appears as a subject term but not in the title.

If terms are combined by AND, items where terms appear in different fields will be retrieved.

For example:
The search statement nursing and history and canada will retrieve items where all three of these terms appear in any section of the record, e.g. history could appear in the title, nursing could appear in a subject term field and canada could appear in the publisher field.
NOTE: For fields that can have multiple entries, each entry is considered a separate field. For example, a work containing the following subject headings would be retrieved by searching nursing history canada because the first subject heading contains all three of these words:

• Nursing--Canada—History
• Midwifery—Canada—History

However, unless all three of nursing, historyand canada appeared together in another field, e.g. the title, a work containing the following subject headings would not be retrieved because Canada appeared in the first subject heading field but not together with nursing and history in the second subject heading field:

• World War, 1914-1918--Medical care—Canada
• Military nursing--New Brunswick—History

Boolean Operators

AND

• Retrieves records containing all of specified terms, e.g. business and ethics and united states.
• AND is used when combining terms representing different concepts/ideas/aspects.

OR

• Locates records containing any of the specified terms, e.g. global warming or climate change or greenhouse effect.
• OR is used when combining synonymous or related terms.

NOT

• Excludes records containing term following the NOT operator, e.g. nursing not breast feeding.
• Be careful when using NOT as you may eliminate something you would want to see, e.g. nursing not breast feeding would eliminate any documents that use the term nursing to mean breast feeding as in nursing an infant, but it would also eliminate any documents that discuss the role of the nursing profession in breast feeding education.

XOR

• Retrieves records matching any one of the specified terms but not all of the terms, e.g. cheddar xor camembert will retrieve all items that containing cheddar and all items containing camembert but will exclude items that contain both terms.
• You will rarely if ever use this operator.

Using Different Boolean Operators in the Same Search Statement

The NEOS Libraries Catalogue will process search statements as follows (as is standard in many searchable databases):

• any terms in parentheses will be searched first
• any terms combined using either AND or NOT will be searched first if there are no terms enclosed in parentheses.
• any terms combined using OR will be searched last unless they are enclosed in parentheses

If you are combining ANDs and ORs, in the same search statement, enclose the OR terms in parentheses, for example:
education and canada and (first nations or aboriginals or natives) would retrieve any records that contain the word education and the word canada and at least one of first nations, aboriginals or natives.
If you do search education and canada and first nations or aboriginals or natives, you would retrieve records that include education, canada and first nations, but you would also retrieve all records that include either the word aboriginals or natives whether or not they also discussed education and canada.

Positional/Adjacency Operators

Positional/adjacency operators allow you to indicate how close words should appear in records retrieved.

SAME Retrieves records in which a field contains all of the specified terms in any order, e.g capacity same building would retrieve a title containing any of the following phrases: capacity building, building capacity, building social capacity, building social and physical capacity.

NEAR Retrieves records in which specified terms are adjacent to each other, but not necessarily in the specified order, e.g. critical$ near thinking will retrieve critical thinking or thinking critically.

WITH Retrieves records in which specified terms are contained in the same sentence in any order with any number of intervening words, e.g. children with sports.

ADJ Retrieves records in which specified terms are adjacent to each other in the order specified, e.g. critical adj thinking.

ADJn

• n=any number.
• Retrieves records in which specified terms are within n number of words from each other in the order specified, e.g. native adj3 education indicates that up to three words can separate native and education. The word native must precede education, however.

Truncation symbols and Wildcards

Truncation symbols and wildcards allow you to accommodate variations in word endings and spellings.

The truncation symbol $ is used for unlimited character substitution at the end of a word, e.g. critic$ will retrieve critic, critics, criticism, critically.

The truncation symbol $n where n = any number results in truncation being limited to the number of characters indicated by the number, e.g. critic$2 will retrieve any string of characters beginning with the root critic with up to two characters following it, e.g. critic, critics and critical will be retrieved, but NOT criticism or critically.

The wildcard symbol ? is used as a substitute for a missing or possibly missing character in a search term, e.g. colo?r will retrieve color or colour; wom?n will retrieve woman or women.

Stop Words

The following are all stop words in iLink and will normally be ignored if they appear in search statements: a, an, as, at, be, but, by, do, for, if, in, it, of, on, the, to.

See below under Phrase Searching for information on how to include stop words in a search statement.

Phrase Searching

If you wish to search an exact phrase, enclose it in single quotes, e.g 'critical thinking'.

Double quotes would be used if searching a phrase that includes a Boolean operator or a stop word, e.g. e.g. "not a love story", "or all the sea with oysters", "and a hard rain fell", "a galaxy not so far away", "right or wrong" .

Punctuation

Punctuation can be omitted as, generally, it is replaced by spaces except in the following situation:

• If a period is used as a decimal point within a number, it is not replaced by a space, e.g. the period is not removed in the following statement but the colon will be: 98.6 : a novel. This means that the period MUST be included when searching a decimal number.
• Ampersands (&), apostrophes (‘) and backslashes (\) are ignored, e.g. if you search Sophie’s Choice, the catalogue will interpret it as Sophies Choice.

Searching for Non-English Material

Roman characters that use accents will be retrieved if the non-accented character is searched, e.g. bibliotheque will retrieve bibliothèque; soren kierkegaard will retrieve søren kierkegaard. However, if you are dealing with a German word that includes an umlaut, for complete retrieval search using the single non-accented character as well as the non-accented character followed by an ‘e’, e.g. if you need to search the word österreich search it as osterreich or oesterreich.

Titles in non-Roman languages, e.g. Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, have been transliterated and must be searched using the transliteration conventions of the language in question. It may be easier to search WorldCat Local instead of the NEOS Libraries Catalogue if you are dealing with non-Roman languages as you can search using the characters of that language rather than using transliterated terms.

Searching with Field Labels

A pull-down menu is available in the basic search if you wish to restrict your search to one of the following fields: Author, Title, Subject, Periodical Title or Series.

If you need to be able to search different terms in different fields within the same search, this can be done in the Advanced Search, or by using field labels in the basic search.

To use field labels, enter two/three-letter field codes enclosed in {} behind each term, e.g. twain {au} and huckleberry {ti}; or global warming {su} and ingram {au}; Oryx Press {260} and assertive {245} combine terms with Boolean operators as appropriate.

Allowable fields codes:

• Author - {au}
• Title – {ti}
• Subject – {su}
• Periodical Title – {per}
• Series – {ser}
• Any MARC code, e.g. {245}

Ensure that you leave the search menu on Any Field when using field labels in your search.

Reviewing and Managing Records

Reviewing Records

After an initial search, the title, author, publication date and brief availability information for all items matching your search criteria will be displayed along with Details and Mark buttons. Many titles may also display an image of their book jacket.

To view more complete information about a title, including the call number, click on one of the following: the Details button, the title hyperlink or the book jacket image (when available).

The initial Item Information display will provide you with the following information for print titles:

• Brief bibliographic information about the item
• Library/libraries holding this particular item
• Call number
• Location: This section will indicate whether the book is available (On Shelf), is signed out ((Due: Date book is due) or has any special conditions, e.g. No Loan, Departmental Loan, etc.
• A Place Hold button is available to place a hold on items that are already signed out or to request items be delivered from another location to your home library.

The More Information tab will provide any additional information available which may include a table of contents or a summary of the book.

The Catalogue Record tab will provide the complete record describing the item including the subject headings applied, added author entries, any available notes, etc. The catalogue record can be displayed in one of the following formats: Brief Display (default), Full Display or MARC Display. Use the links on the right hand side of the screen to select the desired format. After selecting the desired display, you will be taken back to the Item Information tab. When you click back into the Catalogue Record tab, the format will have changed to the one selected.

Marking Records

To mark records for saving, printing, emailing or exporting to RefWorks, click on the Mark button that appears to the left of each title in the item display or in the right hand column in the Details record.

When you are finished selecting records, click on the Kept tab available at the top of the display to view/print a list of all titles selected.

Saving, Printing, Emailing and Exporting Records

To email records, enter your email address in the box, select the desired format and click on Email.

To print records, select desired sort order and format and click on View or Print Formatted. A new browser window will open, and the items you selected will be displayed on screen in the Full format. Select File/Print from this new browser window to print these items.

To save records, select desired sort order and click on View. A new browser window will open, and the items you selected will be displayed on screen in the Full format. Select File/Print from this new browser window and designate an appropriate file name and directory path as prompted.

To export records to RefWorks, click on the RefWorks button and login to RefWorks when prompted. Your selected records will be imported into your Last Imported folder.

The Advanced Search

Use the Advanced Search if you wish to search different terms in different fields, e.g. you wish to search an author in combination with title words, or if you wish to use any of the Optional Limits available in Advanced Search that are not available in the Basic Search.

Advanced searches are done in the Keyword mode.

Optional Limits

The following Optional Limits are available in Advanced Search:

Library: allows you to limit by single library or to a library group/system, e.g. all University of Alberta libraries, all Grant MacEwan libraries, all Alberta Government Libraries. Library group names appear at the top of the Library pull-down menu; individual libraries appear below the separation line on this menu.

Language: allows you to limit by language. If no language is selected, materials in all languages will be retrieved.

Format allows you to limit to:

• Books - will retrieve books, government documents and reports available in print or online)
• Computer Data Files - generally, this would limit to CD Rom publications
• Manuscripts – includes unpublished manuscripts held in special collections
• Maps
• Music/Sound – will retrieve musical scores and sound recordings available in LP, cassette, CD or online formats
• Periodicals/Serials - will retrieve periodicals, journals, serials, magazines and newspapers available in print or online
• Videos/Visual Materials – will retrieve videos in VHS, DVD and online format and visual materials, e.g. art reproductions, posters, etc, in print and online format.

Location refers to specific locations within libraries. In most cases, use of the Location limit will be of use to Library staff for very specific purposes and can be ignored by others.

E-Resource Type refers to specific types of electronic/online format. DO NOT USE, NONE and UNKNOWN appear as an options, but should be ignored they will obviously not be helpful.

Match On allows you to designate whether you want any records retrieved containing the terms searched (Keyword), records where your terms appear from left to right in the order in which you typed them in (Left to Right) or as an exact phrase (Exact Content).

Year Allows you to limit to a specific year or range of years as follows:

• To limit items published in 2011, enter: 2011
• To limit to items published from 2005 through 2011, enter: 2005-2011
• To limit to items published prior to 2000, i.e. 1999 and earlier, enter: < 2000
• To limit to items published after 2000, i.e. 2001 and later, enter: >2000
• To limit to items published in 2000 or earlier, enter: <=2000
• To limit to items published in 2000 or later, enter: >=2000

Sort By allows you to re-sort records retrieved.

• The default order for display of records is "last record entered into the database appears first". This will roughly correspond to reverse chronological order, but if library staff process an older book more recently than a newer book, the older book will appear first in the list by default, and re-sorting by New to Old will sort records with most recently published material listing first.
• The sort limit is 500 records and is done after the initial search.

Browsing by Call Number

• To browse an alphabetical index of matching call numbers from the Advanced Search page, select Call Number Search, enter all or the first part of it and select a specific library to search. You will then be able to browse a list of materials around that call number area.
• NOTE: It is not possible to browse call number across different libraries.

My Account

My Account will allow you to view account information such as items checked out, fines, and holds. You may renew books and change your PIN number from within My Account.

To enter My Account, click on the My Account link and enter the barcode number from your Library Card or ONECard (University of Alberta clients). Then enter your PIN.

If you do not have a PIN or your PIN does not work, ask library staff at your home library for assistance in determining your PIN and/or to re-set it.

The University of Alberta Libraries provides an alternate access to My Account using a U of Alberta CCID. See https://www.library.ualberta.ca/myaccount/ for CCID access to My Account.

Ensure that you logout of My Account when you are finished by clicking on the Logout link. If you are using a public computer, it is also recommended that you close the browser when finished as other users can access your account information by using the browser back button even if you have logged out.

Reserve Desk

To search for items available at a library Reserve Desk, click on Reserve Desk tab at the top of the page when in the catalogue. Then do the following:

1. Enter one of an Instructor Name, a Course Number or Course Name in the search box.
2. Click on the appropriate box designating the term you entered in the search box, i.e. one of Instructor Name, Course Number or Course Name.
3. If desired, select the appropriate library from the Library pull-down menu.