Collection Development

Search Tips

Keywords: Using Sears headings may generate results that more closely match what you are looking for. For example, try “battle Gettysburg” instead of “civil war.”

Special Options: Use quotes “ ” to search for an exact phrase. E.g., “coyote tales” - adding quotes will search for these two words in this specific order. Titlewave will find Coyote Tales and not The coyote road trickster tales.

Exclude terms with a minus/hyphen (-) symbol. E.g., math counting -money - adding this symbol will search for the words “math” and “counting,” but will exclude those results that include the word “money.”

Use the asterisk wildcard. E.g., super* - adding the * to the end of the word will search for all words beginning with the given characters. In this example, Titlewave will hit on “superhero”, “superman”, “supernatural”, etc.

Combine options to further refine your search. E.g., “holidays & celebrations” -Christmas -valentine - adding the exact phrase using “ “ will search for holiday titles, but adding the “-“ will exclude those results that include the words “Christmas” or “valentine.”

Note: You can use these special searching options on the search bar on every page and keywords, author, subjects on advanced search.

Specific Titles: “Search in the title only” is best to use when you know what you are looking for. Using this feature on a more general search may limit your results and make you miss good titles. For example, if you put “wizards” as a keyword, and click the Search in the title only, your results won’t return any of the current Harry Potter books. On the other hand, if you think you know what you are looking for, it makes sense to limit your search by title only.

Copyright Year: Entering a copyright year range is a good way to limit your results to items that fit your age sensitivity restrictions for your collection.