Setting Search Options

You can set search options to limit and focus your search by certain characteristics.

Example:
You do a keyword subject search on astronomy that yields hundreds of entries. You are looking for recent information, but many of the titles were published years ago. You can limit the search by publication date, so that the results show only items published from 2000 to the present.

You can set search options in the following ways:

• Select specific library locations - You can specify which libraries you want to search.
• Set publication dates - You can restrict the search to items published in a certain year or range of years.
• Limit material types - You can limit your search to certain library-defined material types for the physical items the library owns. For example, if you are only interested in pamphlets in the library's collection, you can limit the search to pamphlets.
• Select target audiences - You can search for titles intended only for specific audiences, such as children or young adults. (Not all bibliographic records include target audience information.)
• Specify publication languages - A search can be limited to titles published in a specific language or languages, for example, English, French, German, or Spanish.

Note:
Your library may also allow you to limit searches to find items on reserve for courses. See "Finding Course Reserves".

You can also use search options to determine how the search results should be sorted: by most popular, author, title, call number, publication date, or by a combination of any two of these options. The Most Popular option, which is active unless you specify a different option, sorts titles in the search results so that the titles most frequently checked out or requested over the past 120 days appear first in the list.

When you select a primary sort option and a secondary sort option, the results are sorted by the primary category, then by the secondary category.

Example:
If you have a keyword subject search sorted by author, the results list shows titles about the subject grouped by author. If you select Author as the primary category and Date as the secondary category, the results are sorted first by author, and then by publication date within the group of each author's works.

Objective: Set search options

Follow these steps to set search options for focusing a search. You can set any combination of options.

1. Select a search method (for example, Keyword) from the Search submenu.

Note:
Search options are not available for browse searches.

2. Select Open Search Options to display the search options. You may need to scroll the page to see all the options.

Tip:
To select several consecutive items in a list, hold down the SHIFT key as you select the items. To select several items that are not listed together, hold down the CTRL key as you select the items.

3. To specify a library site or sites to search, scroll the Libraries list, if necessary, and select a library site.
4. To specify publication dates for limiting your search, scroll the Publication Dates list, if necessary, and select a date or range of dates.

Tip:
You can exclude items from a search. Select them from the appropriate list, and click the Exclude check box below the list.

5. To specify detailed material types for limiting your search, scroll the Detailed Material Type list, if necessary, and select a material.

Important:
"Detailed material types" are defined by the library for the physical items the library owns. The formats in the Limit by box on the search bar refer to general formats and types of materials associated with title entries in the catalog. You can limit a search by format or detailed material type, but not both. If you selected a format in the Limit by box when you set up your search, your format choice is canceled when you set a material type.

6. To specify a target audience or audiences for limiting your search, scroll the Target Audiences list, if necessary, and select a target audience.
7. To specify a language or languages for limiting your search, scroll the Languages list, if necessary, and select a language.
8. To specify a sorting order for your search results, use these methods:
   • Click Primary Sort Option, and select a sorting category from the list.
   • If you want to specify a subcategory for sorting, click Secondary Sort Option, and select a sorting category from the list.

Note:
Select Course Reserve Mode to limit the results to items on reserve for a course. For more information, see "Finding Course Reserves".

9. Click Set Search Options.

   The search bar displays the Change Search Options link, indicating that search options have been set.

Note:
If you want to minimize scrolling the page, click Close Search Options.

10. Type the text to search for (see "Basic Searching").
11. Click the Search by arrow symbol, and select a search field from the list.
12. Click Go.

    When the search is finished, the results list is displayed.

13. To reset the search options to their default values, select Change Search Options, and click Reset Search Options.

    The options are reset. The search is done again, using the default values. Click Close Search Options or scroll the page to see the results.

Important:
Search options retain their settings until you reset them to the default values. The link Change Search Options on the search bar indicates that search options are set to values different from the default values.