Help Screens

Search Functions: adjacent to the box where the search term is written, a search function must be chosen, the options are:

Literal: this search looks for a word anywhere in the string. For example in a title search, if the word “Holocaust” appears not only at the beginning, but in the middle or end of a title, the item will appear as part of the search results.

Fuzzy: for searching broadly when unsure of which term to use for searching.

Soundex: if you are not sure how to spell a given term, spell it as it sounds. 

Synonyms: includes variant spellings of a given term.  This is especially important regarding place names, which often have changed over time. 

Use of Boolean Operators

Within any field, Boolean operators (Or, And and Not) may be used freely with standard Boolean syntax.

A search string may contain words or parts of words, together with various Boolean operators.

The asterisk (*) sign may be used to broaden a search.  If you type * at the end of a word or word fragment - for example part* - the results will include words with partner, particle, participate and so on. An asterisk (*) may also be typed at the beginning of a word.

Between the fields, the default is “And”. If you type in keyword: “Final Solution” and author: “Browning” you will only get results for items about the “Final Solution” that were written by authors named Browning

Search Fields

Global Search: searching for a term in any field of a catalogued item.  For example searching for “Berlin,” items could be returned with “Berlin” as part of a subject heading, title, author’s name, place of publication or publisher’s name, whenever “Berlin” was mentioned in a note made by the cataloguing librarian or in any other relevant field.

Author: searches among names of authors, editors and compilers of material in the catalogue.  Either the first or last name may be entered, but when doing a more specific search for an author, use the format Lastname, Firstname

Title: includes titles and subtitles.  The search term may be a word from, a fragment of, or the entire title.

Keyword: searching for a word that is part of string that comprises a subject heading or headings given by the Library to catalogued items.  To see the Library’s keyword strings for classification, press on the icon and type in the term or terms for which you are searching.  For example if you are interested in “Rescue of Jews,” after clicking on the icon, type “Rescue” and you will see all the keyword strings that begin with the word “Rescue.”

Year of Publication: you can choose material that was published during a given year or during a range of years.  For example if you want books published between the year 2000 and 2005, type 2000~~2005.

Language: click on the icon to see the list of languages in the library. Type in the language for which you are searching after having clicked on the icon and then select it.  You can also directly write the language without clicking on the icon.

Publisher: If you are looking for the publications of a specific publisher, write in the name of the publisher.  You do not need to write in the entire name.

Material Type: click on the icon to see the different types of material held in the library.  You only need to fill in this field if you are looking for a specific material type, such as a CD, or an article or a map.

Search Results

The display of items you receive as a result of your search is limited to 1000.  If you have found more than 1000 items we suggest you refine you search.

The items displayed are arranged by year of publication, with the newest items appearing first.

If you click on a given item, its full bibliographic details will appear to the right of the search results.  Underlined results, such as the name of an author are “hot” and may be clicked as an additional way of searching for material.

You select items from the list by checking them in the box that appears to the right of a given item.  When you have finished selecting items from a given screen, click on the basket icon at the right hand top of the search results.  Proceed to the next screen and do the same.  When you click on the basket icon you will see your previous selected items as well as the newly added items.  To clear selected items press the X icon that appears to the right of the basket icon.

You can email the selected items to yourself, print them out or cut and paste them into another document.