Guides: HUM 110: Western Culture &amp; Tradition I: How to Use WorldCat

How to Use Worldcat

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.

Enter search terms
Click the Search button
After you click Search, WorldCat will display your results.
Use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to narrow down your search in a number of categories.
Use the dropdown menu to change the order of your search results by relevance, recency, and library.

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

If you ever experience problems finding a book try switching from "Redeemer University" to "Libraries Worldwide" under the Library dropdown menu on the left hand side of the WorldCat screen. Many open access e-resources that are available to Redeemer students only show up under Libraries Worldwide and will not be visible if only searching with the "Redeemer University" option.

The Advanced Search screen can be used to conduct more targeted searches in WorldCat. To retrieve the Advanced Search screen take the following steps:

On the Redeemer Library website (https://libguides.redeemer.ca/library) find the WorldCat Search box click the Advanced Search link
Enter search terms in the search box
Click on the drop-down menu beside the search box and select your targeted search. The Redeemer WorldCat allows you to search by the following: Accession number, Author, ISBN, ISSN, Journal Source, Keyword, Subject, Title
Scroll down to the lower part of the Advanced Search to find more options you can use to narrow your search: Library, Year of publication, Audience, Content, Format, Language,
You can also choose to search "Libraries Worldwide" or just limit your search to "Redeemer University".

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:):

ti: problem of pain

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:):

ti: problem of pain au: lewis

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

Note: As mentioned on the "Basic Search" tab, if you are still having issues finding a book try switching from "Redeemer University" to "Libraries Worldwide" under the Library dropdown menu on the left hand side of the WorldCat screen. Many open access e-resources that are available to Redeemer students only show up under Libraries Worldwide and will not be visible if only searching with the "Redeemer University" option.

After you have performed your search, WorldCat contains limiters and sorting options that enable you to narrow your search on the results screen:

Use the "Sort" pull down menu on the left hand side of the screen to sort your results by:
* Relevance (use this if you don't want Redeemer results at the top of the list)
* Author
* Title
* Year of Publication
* Note that the default is Library and Relevance. This puts Redeemer holdings at the top of your list
Check off one of the boxes in "Format" to limit your results by:
* Articles
* Peer-reviewed articles
* Books
* eBooks
* DVD
* CD
* Archival material
* And more depending on your search
Click on the other links in side menu to limit your results by:
* Author
* Year
* Language
* Content
* Audience
* Topic
Click on the Editions and Format>> link beneath a record to retrieve previous editions and different formats of that particular item

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:

Boolean Operator	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)	Retrieves documents with the first term and excludes terms that come after NOT Example: "literacy - childhood" searches for documents containing the term "literacy" but not the term "childhood"

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