Library Search | Ketu Help: Simple Search

Use phrase searching to get more specific results

      e.g. "gold mining" otago

Use the wildcard or truncation symbol (*) to find alternative word endings

      e.g. mine* will find mines, miner, mineralogy, minerals...

From May 2015 your original search term/s will be expanded to include inflections; also known as lemmatisation:

      e.g. root form of a word: going will find go, computers will find computer

      e.g. noun plurals: human right will find human rights

      e.g. verbs: go will find went, gone and goes

Use this wildcard symbol within a word to find single letter variations

      e.g. wom?n

Wildcard symbols do not work on the front of a search term.

      e.g. *aying or ?aying will not find saying or playing, it will only search for aying

Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) must be entered in capital letters or the search will include all terms.

   Use of AND is not required between keywords so these examples will find the same result

         e.g. water (fluoride OR fluoridation)    ...same result as:  e.g. water AND (fluoride OR fluoridation) 

         e.g. water AND fluoride AND teeth      ...same result as:  e.g. water fluoride teeth    

   Use OR  to find either a word or phrase in your search results

         e.g. student OR learner

         e.g. "secondary school" OR "high school"

   Use NOT to exclude a word or phrase from your search results

         e.g. fish NOT whales

Searches without OR or NOT will find all terms

         e.g. "Treaty of Waitangi" partner* rights

Group terms within a search using parentheses:

         e.g. shakespeare (drama OR tragedy)

         e.g. "food preparation" (safety OR rules)

Use Boolean operators in Advanced Search too.