Follett VERSION 6.00, User Manual

Page: 459 / 730

04/04 Chapter 35 Using your OPAC 459
What is a Power search?
Power search, an advanced keyword searching tool, allows patrons to search for
several words or phrases. Search terms can be from 2 letters (or a single number)
up to 40 alphanumeric characters. To access the Power search dialog, select
Power from the toolbar or Search menu.
By default, your OPAC
searches the entire
keyword index. You
can specify that a
word or phrase should
be part of the title,
author's name, notes,
subject, or series title
by selecting it here.
Clears the current
search
Boolean operators
define the relation
ship between search
terms.
For an explanation of
Boolean search logic,
see page 460.
Wildcards
Wom?n finds woman"
and women."
Teach* finds teach,"
teacher," teaches,"
and teaching."
For more information
on wildcards, see
page 459.
Some words are so common that searching on them isn't productive. To save
time, your OPAC disregards these stop words" during Keyword or Power
searches. A list of stop words is located in the online help Glossary.
When searching on a phrase (e.g., United States), the words must be next to each
other in the MARC record to be considered a match. Keywords separated by stop
words are also valid. Your OPAC considers any group of letters surrounded by
spaces to be a word.
See also:
For a list of the MARC tags used in keyword searches, see page 637.
Wildcards ( ? and * )
Wildcards help your patrons if they're not certain how to spell a keyword. A
question mark ( ? ) replaces a single letter. You can use more than one question
mark in a word, but it can't be the first character. An asterisk ( * ) replaces any
number of characters at the end of a word. However, the asterisk can't be a
word's first or second character.