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Basic Searching

When should I use a Basic Search?

• if you are looking for a known item but only remember a portion of the author's name, title, or subject
• if you are looking for items on a particular subject but are unsure of the exact subject heading
• if you are looking a particular item and know the author’s last name and the subject of the work
• if you know the last names of the authors/editors

There are two options under Basic Search:

1. Search for Keywords
2. Browse Organized Lists

Search for Keywords

This option allows searching four ways:

• Keywords Anywhere: This is the default search. This search retrieves records matching the term(s) you enter if they appear any field in the bibliographic record. This includes the title, author, and subject headings.

• Title Keywords: This search retrieves records matching term(s) you enter if they appear in title field of the bibliographic record.

• Author Keywords: This search retrieves records matching term(s) you enter if they appear in author field of the bibliographic record.

• Subject Keywords: This search retrieves records matching term(s) you enter if they appear in subject field and subject headings of the bibliographic record.

Browse Organized Lists - allows you to search alphabetical or numerical lists of titles, authors, subject headings, call numbers, and more.

When should I use Browse Organized Lists?

• If you know the full title or a few words that begin the title
• If you know the author’s last name and first initial or the author’s last name and full first name
• If you know the exact subject heading and are searching for items on that particular subject
• If you know the call number of item and are looking for similar items

The drop down menu allows for several choices, the most common being:

• Title begins with: This search retrieves items matching the term(s) you enter if they appear anywhere in the title field of the bibliographic record. This is best used when you are certain of the full title or only know a beginning portion of the title.

• Author (last name, first): This search retrieves items matching the term(s) you enter if they appear in the author field of the bibliographic record. For this search to work, you need to at least know the author’s last name. The search will also work if you include last name and first name or last name and first initial. Note: If you are including a first name or first initial, you must use a comma.)

• Subject: This search retrieves items matching the terms you enter if they appear in the subject fields or subject headings of the bibliographic record. Use this search when you want to find items on a topic or related to a topic.

• Call number(LC): This search retrieves items matching the term(s) you enter if they appear in the call number field of the bibliographic record. The call number is the number by which the item is located in a particular library’s collection. Use this search when you know the call number of an item and want to find other items similar to that one.

 

Advanced Keyword Searching

When should I use the Advanced Search?

• If your search is more specific than general
• If you need to do complex Boolean searches
• If the documents you need should be within a certain range of dates, from a certain location, or in a specific format or language
• if you want to limit your search to items found in a specific library, e.g. Goldstein

EXACT PHRASE?

Choose YES for "Exact Phrase?" if you want all your keywords to appear next to each other in all retrieved records.

For example, if you type in the phrase information retrieval and select YES, the system will understand that you want only records that have the word information next to the word retrieval.

Choose NO if you if the keywords can appear anywhere in the retrieved records, not necessarily next to each other.

For example, if you search for information management systems and select NO, you could retrieve records that mention “management of information systems” and “information systems and management.”

PROXIMITY OPERATORS are tools to:

• Allow you to limit your search.
• May be placed between search terms to indicate the order in which they should appear and the distance between them.

The Advanced Search Screen allows you to use the following Proximity operators:

Use the ? character to find matches that contain portions of words or to find variant spellings.

For example: tech? will retrieve technique, technical, technology, technicality , etc. In another example, ?tion will retrieve information, socialization, application, etc.

For example: organi?n will find both the American spelling, organization, and the British spelling, organisation.

!  When followed by a number, this symbol indicates that you want the words to appear within a certain number of words in that specific order.

Example: gone !3 wind retrieves Gone and Back and Gone with the Wind

%  When followed by a number, this symbol indicates that you want the words to appear within a particular distance from each other in any order.

Example: gone %3 wind retrieves Gone with the Wind and Gone with the Wind letters and Gone with the Windsors

Wildcard and Truncation - Wildcards and truncation are tools to that allow you to expand your search.

* or ?  Either truncation symbol may be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of a word not both.

Examples: soci* retrieves social, socialization, society
                ?social retrieves anti-social and social

#  Acts as a placeholder for one character that may or may not be present.

Example: organi?ation retrieves organization or organisation

!  Acts as a placeholder for a character that must be present.

Example: wom!n retrieves woman or women

Boolean Operators

AND: The AND operator is used to make a connection between two terms that will retrieve records. AND retrieves all records containing at least one occurrence of the specified terms. All of the specified terms must be in the record. AND is useful for decreasing the amount of records retrieved by a search statement. Please note the Online Catalog supplies the default operator(s) if more than one term appears in the input box and you do not explicitly select the operator(s) in your search. The default operator is AND.



Example: libraries AND children

This search query will bring up records with both terms

AND limits your search




OR: The OR operator retrieves records that contain one term or the other, or both, regardless of their position in a record. OR is used to combine two or more terms that are synonyms or variant terms. OR is useful for increasing the amount of records retrieved.



Example: libraries or children

This search query looks for records with either or all of the terms.

Or expands your search results.




NOT: NOT is used to exclude from your retrieval sets those records that contain a certain term or terms. In other words, the NOT operator retrieves any record which contains the first term but not the second. You should use the NOT operator only when absolutely certain that you do not want any records that happen to contain the NOT term. If your NOT term is not very specific, you may accidentally exclude some relevant records.



Example: libraries not children

This search query looks for records with the term(s) before the not




( ) : Use parenthesis to create complex searches. Statements enclosed in parenthesis are performed first by the system. If there are no parenthesis around sets of terms, the system will process first all your AND operators and then the OR operators and then the NOT operators.

For example: (multimedia or learning) and (hypermedia or education) , the words linked by OR will be processed first, then the results of those combinations will be joined by the AND operator.




“ “ : To search for a phrase, enclose the words of the phrase in quote marks.

For example: "information technology" would retrieve records that have the phrase "information technology" in subject keywords.

CONNECTING THE SEARCH WINDOWS

Use “OR” to expand a search.
Use “AND” to limit a search.
Use “NOT” to narrow a search.

Click on OR (in the drop-down menu between search windows) when you are searching for synonyms. When you connect two search windows with OR, you will find that either the keywords in the first search window or the keywords in the second search window appear in all of the records you retrieve.

Example: If you entered “education” in the first window and “learning” in the second window, then selected OR, you would retrieve all records that include either of these words.

Click on AND (in the drop down menu between search windows) when you want all of they keywords you have entered to appear in each of the records you retrieve. When you connect two search windows with AND, you will find that both the keywords in the first search window and the keywords in the second search window appear in all of the records you retrieve.

Example: If you entered “education” in the first window and “learning” in the second window, then selected AND from the drop-down menu, you would retrieve only those records that include both of these words.

Click on NOT (in the drop-down menu between search boxes) when you want to retrieve records with the keywords in the first box but not the keywords in the second box.

Example: If you entered “education” in the first box and “higher” in the second box, then selected NOT from the drop-down menu, you would retrieve records that include "education" but not "higher" (i.e. “higher education”).

LIMITING SEARCH RESULTS

Format
Use this drop-down menu to limit a search to a certain type of material. Note that many different options are available.

Language
Use this menu to limit a search to items in a particular language. The most commonly-used languages are listed first; others are listed in alphabetical order below the dotted line.

Location
Use this menu to limit a search to items held at a specific location.

Date
Use this menu to limit a search by date of publication.

Type “from” and “to” dates in the first and second boxes.

For example: If you want to limit your results to items published in the 1990s, type 1990 in the first box and 1999 in the second box. If you want to limit your results to items published in 2003 only, type 2003 in the first box and nothing in the second box.

 

Command Searching

This type of searching allows you be more specific in what you are searching for. For example, command searching is the only way to directly search for items within a library’s sub-collections. The Command search is located at the bottom of the Advanced Search screen. A list of Florida State University Libraries’ sub-locations, along with a list of different commands, follows.

When should I use Command Searching?

• If you are searching across several fields
• If you are searching for items within a library’s sub-collections

To search, type the command followed by an equal sign and the term, name, title, etc. for which you are searching. Boolean operators (and, or, not) function as they do in an advanced search to assist you in refining your search.

Examples:

WSC = FSINF JUV AND WRD = FANTASY AND WYR = 2000 (This search will result in a list of items from the Goldstein Library Juvenile that were published in the year 2000 and have the word “fantasy” in their MARC record)

WSC = FSMED AND WSU = CANCER AND WTP = PE (This search will result in a list of periodicals from the Maguire Medical Library with the word “cancer” in one of the MARC subject fields)

Parenthesis may be used to combine terms. Functions within parenthesis will be preformed first.

WSU = (childhood and family) NOT WSC = (FSINF JUV or FSINF EASY) (This search will result in items with the words childhood and family in a subject field, but the search eliminated those items located within the Goldstein Library’s children’s collection)

 

Access Electronic Resources Off-Campus

University Libraries at FSU provide free access to many resources available electronically. These resources can be accessed from anywhere on campus. However, if you are not on campus, you must configure your proxy to have access.

EZ-Proxy

This method requires that have an FSU garnet or mailer e-mail account. EZ-Proxy Tutorial

Off-Campus Access

To get access to databases from off-campus, sign-in below. You will be redirected to our site through the proxy server.

Username(Garnet or Mailer username):
Example: jstudent(without the @ or anything after it)

Password (Garnet or Mailer password) :

 

Renew Items

You can renew your items on your own via the Online Catalog. Here are the steps:

1. Click on the Renew Items link. If this link does not work, you can click on the “your account” link located at the top right-hand side of the main page of the Online Catalog

2. Enter your library card number.

Note: This is the 14-digit number located at the very bottom of your FSU ID. Following “Lib#:” you should see a number that begins with 206. Your library card number begins with the 206.

3. Enter your password.

Note: Unless you have changed it in “your account,” your password is the last for digits of your social security number.

Note: The last four digits of your social security number is the default password. You can change your password if you wish, by logging into your account and clicking on “Change Password.”

4. Make sure the University selected is Florida State University.

5. Click “Go.”

6. Click on “Loans,” located in the “Activities” section. This should bring up a complete list of items you have checked out from any Florida State University Library.

7. Click on the underlined number of the item you wish to renew. A page should come up that gives you details of the item on loan.

8. Click “Renew” located directly underneath the current “Due date.” The system should take you back to your loan page, and it should reflect the new due date.

Note: To renew all items in your account, click “Renew All,” the third link above your list of items.

***Remember to click “end session” located to the left of “your account” when you are finished!

 

Pay Overdue Fines

Goldstein does not accept payment for overdue fines. To pay your fines, you can go to the Cashier’s Office at the University Center in Building A, or pay them online. To pay online:

1. Access your Student Secure Information Menu

A. Go to campus.fsu.edu
B. Enter your garnet/mailer username and password
C. Click “Login”
D. Click the “Secure Apps” tab on the top right-hand side of the page.

2. Click on the “Online Payment and Fees” option. There should be a category called “Library Fines.” Click the “Details” button for more information.

 

Request an item

Occasionally, an item that you need is checked out by another person. If you need this item, you may request it by:

1. Clicking on “Location” in the bibliographic record of the item you need.

2. Scroll down to the bottom of page. If the item is, indeed, checked out there will be a link that says: “Request.”

3. Click on “Request.”

4. Enter your library card number.

Note: This is the 14-digit number located at the very bottom of your FSU ID. Following “Lib#:” you should see a number that begins with 206. Your library card number begins with the 206.

5. Enter your account password.

Note: Unless you have changed it in “your account,” your password is the last for digits of your social security number.

6. Click “Go” to complete the request.

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