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Qualified searches

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Discover how to qualify a WorldCat index search by combining numeric, keyword, and derived search terms with qualifier indexes and supported values using AND or NOT.

Qualifying a search is combining numeric, keyword, or derived search terms with qualifier indexes and supported values using Boolean operators and (AND) or not (NOT).

Examples:

  • su:scotland and mt:map and yr:2000-
  • cn:microsoft and yr:2003 not mt:url

Qualify searches to make them precise and narrow your results. Although in the Connexion command line or in the FirstSearch expert search, you can search using the following qualifier indexes alone, but alone they are likely to retrieve too many records. Qualifier indexes are meant to be combined with other indexes to limit a search by a specific attribute.

  • Material Type: Limits a search to one of over 100 specific material types.
  • Years of publication: Limits a search to a year or a range of years.
  • Microform or not microform: Limits a search to microforms or excludes microforms.
  • Cooperative Programs: Limits a search to records produced by the Library of Congress (LC) or LC cooperative programs.
  • Internet or not Internet: Limits a search to Internet resources or excludes Internet resources.
  • Language: Limits a search to items in a specific language.
  • Holding Library: Limits a search to items held by a specific library. Not available in WorldCat Discovery.

Guidelines

  • Qualifiers can appear in any order in a search.
  • More than one qualifier can be used.
  • Browse terms cannot be qualified.
  • For non-Latin script search terms, use the same qualifiers as Latin scripts and enter search terms in Latin script.
  • In Connexion only, some values and codes for qualifying searches can be entered by simply preceding with a slash instead of an index label and colon (:) or equal sign (=).
  • If you use slash qualifiers:
    • Type as the last elements of a search.
    • Use only one of each type listed above, in any order — ovid,meta/bks/dlc/1600-99
    • Do not use slash qualifiers in WorldShare and WorldCat Discovery; these applications do not support searches with slashes.

Slash qualifiers are available in FirstSearch WorldCat or WorldCat Resource Sharing for derived searches only. To use slash qualifiers with derived searches in FirstSearch/Resource Sharing expert searches, the derived search must be the first or only element of a search.