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Searching Methods continued - Searching By Word in Title
Searching by Word in Title
If you are not sure of a book's full title you may search for the book using a single word that may appear in the title. Here are some tips for searching by the Word in Title. 1. You can search for any ONE word in a title. Example: "I heard about a book where there is a murder in a cathedral." You can search for the word Cathedral and find T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral or Margaret Truman's Murder at the National Cathedral along with a variety of other books that have the word "Cathedral" in the title. 2. To help you locate titles in a series, we have added a series search word to titles that have been identified as being part of series. If the series has a specific order, then a number is added to the title. The series search word is a unique combination of numbers and/or letters. Example: Murder at the National Cathedral by Margaret Truman is listed in the OPAC as MURDER AT THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL; 10 CAPCRIMES. The term PERRYMASON is added to all the Perry Mason mysteries without any numbering. Searching by the series search word results in a list of all the titles in our collection that are part of that series. 3. Any word that you enter in the Word in Title search is assumed to be incomplete. Example: A search using the word "Dream" will find titles with Dream, Dreaming, Dreamer, Dreams, etc. Matching titles will be displayed alphabetically by author and then title. 4. If a word appears more than once in the title, the title will be listed in the results more than once. Example: A search using the word "Dig" will display a variety of titles. The book Digs and Diggers is listed twice, once for each time a variation of "Dig" appears in the title. 5. An asterisk (*) can be used if you are uncertain about the spelling of a word. Example: Many of our titles use the British spelling of honor - honour. A search for HON*R will display titles with both spellings.
Searching By Title
You can search for a book by its title. Here are some tips for searching by title. 1. Do not enter the word "A," "An," or "The" when the word appears at the beginning of a title. This is because too many books begin with these little words. Do not begin any title searches with "A," "An," or "The" as separate words. 2. You can enter any number of CONSECUTIVE BEGINNING words in a title. Example: If you were looking for The Case of the Angry Mourner, you could type CASE OF THE ANGRY MOURNER or CASE OF THE ANGRY. Entering ANGRY MOURNER will result in 0 hits. 3. The last word you enter is assumed to be incomplete. Example: A search for LITTLE PRINCE will result in both A Little Princess and The Little Prince. 4. The asterisk (*) can be used as a wild card in a variety of ways. Examples: If you are uncertain of the spelling several words. The title of the book is pronounced "The mammer zap and the donkey voo." A search for that spelling will come up with zero hits. However, a search for MAM*DON will result in The Mamur Zapt and the Donkey-Vous. You can also use the asterisk at the beginning of a title. Example: *MARK TWAIN will result in 35 titles. Mark Twain without the asterisk locates only 19 titles. 5. Do not use punctuation in the title. Example: Searching for WHAT'S SO FUNNY, KETU? will result in 0 hits. To locate the book, simply enter WHATS SO FUNNY KETU.
