The Importance of Keyword Searching

 

Information in electronic database records (including library catalogs, bibliographic databases, directories, etc.) is divided into fields. These fields (e.g., author, title, date, subject, keywords) are searchable. To do a keyword search on the World-Wide-Web (WWW), you should use advanced methods available in most WWW search engines.

What is Truncating and How Can it Help?

When conducting a search, many databases allow you to truncate. Truncating a word means to use only the first part of a word when you enter it into a database. When you truncate a word you retrieve all words that begin with the same letters. In some databases you need to indicate that you are truncating a word by typing an asterisk * or exclamation point ! at the end.

For instance, if you wanted information about libraries, you could type libr*. You would retrieve the words library, libraries, librarian, librarianship, etc. Be sure to type enough of the word so that you do not retrieve a host of unrelated words. If you had typed only lib*, you would also retrieve liberty, liberal, libido, etc.

 

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last updated on 11/25/99