The Basic Search is the default search for Redeemer's WorldCat homepage
It is a great tool to use when you are just beginning to explore a new topic because it uses keywords to find resources by title, subject, author, abstract, all at one time.
Sounds good? But what if you want to conduct a more targeted search (i.e. title, author, etc.)?
To find out how, let's look at the Advanced Search strategies
The Advanced Search screen can be used to conduct more targeted searches in WorldCat. To retrieve the Advanced Search screen take the following steps:
If you choose not to use any of the limiters, the Redeemer WorldCat will use the basic keyword search (see Basic Search) to locate items in the Redeemer Library collections.
Now that we've explored the Basic Search and the Advanced Search let's take a look at the Command Line Search features. The Command Line Search feature allows you to conduct specific and targeted searches from any one of the Redeemer WorldCat screens.
Click the Command Line Search to find out how.
Command Line searches enable users to conduct very specific and targeted line searches from any one of the Redeemer WorldCat search screens. To conduct a Command Line search you can add an Index Label as a prefix to one of your keywords.
Like the search limits in the Advanced Search screen the Index Label will tell Redeemer's WorldCat where to search for the terms in the record. For instance, if you are looking for C.S. Lewis' book "The Problem of Pain" you can use the following Command Line search for a title (ti:):
You can also combine one or more search term using the Command Line search. For instance if you know the title of the book and the author's name you can use the following Command Line search for the title (ti:) and the author (au:):
The following is a list of the most common index labels used by researchers in a Command Line searches:
| Index | Label | Example | ..... | Index | Label | Example |
| Keyword | kw: | kw: Geneva kw: History | Form/Genre | ge: | ge: Biography | |
| Author | au: | au: John Calvin | ISBN (for books) | isbn: | isbn: 9781624660009 | |
| Title | ti: | ti: Napoleon Bonaparte | ISSN (for journals) | issn: | issn: 0034-4338 | |
| Journal Source | so: | so: First Things | Publisher | pb: | pb: Zondervan | |
| Language of Resource | ln: | ln: German | Year of Publication | yr: | yr: 2012 | |
| Subject | su: | su: Second World War |
After you have performed your search, WorldCat contains limiters and sorting options that enable you to narrow your search on the results screen:
Boolean operators enable researchers to combine one or more search terms in their command line searches. The Redeemer WorldCat search engine utilizes the following boolean operators:
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Symbol | Description and Example |
| AND | + (plus sign) | Retrieves documents with all terms Example: "religion + education" searches for documents containing both terms "religion" and "education" |
| OR | | (pipe sign) | Retrieves documents with any single term or all terms Example: "teaching | instruction" searches for documents containing either/or and both terms "teaching" and "instruction" |
| NOT | - (minus sign) |
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Researchers can also use the following symbols to represent different alternative characters in their search terms. These symbols are called Wildcards and Truncations:
| Command | Symbol | Description and Example |
| Single character | # | Replaces a single character in a search term Example: wom#n = woman or women |
| Multiple characters | ? | Replaces multiple characters in a search term Example: colo?r = color or colour or colonizer |
| Truncation | * | Truncates the search term Example: Canad* = Canada or Canadian or Canadiana |
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Peter Turkstra Library, Redeemer University , 777 Garner Road East, Ancaster, ON, L9K 1J4, Canada Circulation Desk Telephone: 905.648.2139 ext. 4266, Email: library@redeemer.ca