How to Search Online

Searching
Displaying Records after a Search
Troubleshooting

Searching

1. Type criteria in the box. If you fill in more than one box, results will meet all criteria. For example: find documents that contain the word women AND have the publication date 1998.
   
   
2. Click Run Search.
   
   
3. Documents that meet your criteria are displayed as a list.
   
   
4. For a full description of the publication, click on the highlighted title.

Finding words and phrases

• Type the word you want to find, for example, women. Or type a phrase safer sex to find those words, in that order.
  
  
• Type an asterisk at the end to find variations of word stems. For example, psycho* will find “psychology”, “psychotherapy”, or “psycho-social.”
  
  
• Use the symbols & / ! between words or phrases to represent Boolean AND (&), OR (/), NOT (!). Include a space before and after the symbol.
  
  
• Use the proximity operators w# (within) and p# (preceding) to find words near each other.

Words joined by & / ! are evaluated in left-to-right order: hispanic* & women / latina* finds publications about Hispanic women or latinas. Use parentheses to control evaluation order: american* & (indian* / native*) finds publications about all American(s), and then restricts this to publications about American Indian(s) and Native American(s).

Finding a Date

Do not use a forward slash to separate date elements unless you surround the date with quotation marks: "12/31/98". You can use the symbols & / ! between dates. For example, May 1998 / June 1998 finds all dates in May or June 1998.

Doing less than, greater than, and "between" searches

You can search for publications greater than or less than a certain value, or within a range. This is most commonly done when searching for dates. Use the symbols shown below. When used with a partial date, these symbols search from the beginning of the date (first day of the month or year). A range consists of two values, low and high, separated by a colon. Include spaces around the colon.

Finding a term (exact, complete match)

A search term is a complete item, with no additional text before or after. To search for a term, precede it with an equal sign (=). For example, =paul monette finds only that complete phrase.

Case and Punctuation

Case in search criteria is ignored. For example, a search for paul monette finds Paul Monette. Punctuation is also ignored, except for the AND-OR-NOT symbols & / ! and the : for range searches. If you want these characters to be interpreted, use quotation marks, "A&U" or replace the punctuation with a space: a u

Clear Button

To automatically delete search criteria, click the Clear button on the search form.

Run Search Button

To start your search, click the Run Search button.

Displaying Records After a Search

A successful search finds one or more records, which display in your web browser as a report. Use browser controls to browse, print, go back, etc. You can also:

• click links on the report to display more detail about a publication
  
  
• when you are looking at the complete record, click the Next and Previous buttons to move through the report

Troubleshooting

Having trouble with a search? Some of the most common problems are listed below. If you cannot determine what caused the error, try a simpler search to see if it works. If even simple searches don't work, contact the AIDS Library.

I got the message "Unable to recognize as a correctly formed search."

The program cannot understand the search criteria. Possible problems include:

Typographical errors

• mismatched or missing quotes or parentheses
  
  
• extra search symbols. For example, latina* / women / should be latina* / women

I found too many records.

• If you used an asterisk, add a few more letters or omit the asterisk and try an exact search instead. For example, search for psychother* or psychotherapy instead of psycho*
  
  
• Use symbols & / ! between words to construct more precise searches. For example, to find articles about mental health and not physical health, search mental ! health
  
  
• If the item you're searching for includes punctuation, substitute spaces for punctuation. For example, search for a u for the title, not a&u, or surround the publication with quotation marks: "a&u"
  
  
• Don't use / between date components. For example, search for 12-12-98 or surround the date with quotation marks: "12/12/98"
  
  

I didn't find any records.

• Click on the Back button on your browser and examine the contents of the search form (especially if it is longer than the screen) to verify that you don't have search criteria left over from a previous search.
  
  
• If you are not sure of the spelling, use an asterisk after the first few characters, colo*, or separate several possible spellings, color / colour
  
  
• If you did a complex search, try simplifying it to eliminate confusion.
  
  
• Use symbols & / ! and not the words AND-OR-NOT; remember to put spaces around symbols: / & ! :
  
  
• Use / instead of & between words. Using / means either word can be present: hispanic* / latin* finds Hispanic(s) or latin(o/as). Using & means both words must be present: african & american will not find just "african" or just "american".
  
  
• Remember that range searches involving partial dates start from the beginning of the range. For example, <1998 means "before Jan. 1, 1998."

When I try to display records or change forms, I get the message, "Your current search has expired. Perform the search again."

The search set file that stored your search results has expired, so you'll have to do your search again.