Illinois State Library

Guided Keyword Search

The new Illinois State Library Voyager catalog system provides you with two options to search for library materials. Begin your search by selecting either the Quick Search or Guided Keyword Search.

The Guided Keyword Search finds library materials using keywords located anywhere in a record, or only in specific fields. This search type is especially helpful if you are looking for specific items or if you would like to create a precise search strategy.

To perform a search:

1. In the top Search for:box, type the search term(s) that you would like to find.
   You can type one or more terms in each box.
2. Select the type of search that you want to perform by choosing a search type from the Search by: list. Select from one of the following options:



• all of these -- will find records containing all of the keywords, regardless of their order. (This is equivalent to the Boolean operator AND. )
• any of these -- will find records containing any of the keywords, regardless of their order. (This is equivalent to the Boolean operator OR.)
• as a phrase -- will find records which contain keywords in the exact order they appear in the search box.



3. Click the Search by:pull-down list to select the field index (e.g., Any Words, Title Words, Author Words, etc.) in which you want to search for your search terms(s). A search can be guided to look for keywords in a specific field index or set of fields of a catalog record by selecting items from these pull-down lists. If no field index is selected, the default option, Any Words (Keyword Anywhere), will be applied to the search. Any Words (Keyword Anywhere) searches all of the fields in a catalog record for the keywords or phrases entered in the Search for: boxes.The field indexes in Voyager include:



• Any Words (Keyword Anywhere)
• Title Words
• Author Words (Author Name)
• Subject Words
• OCLC Number
• Publisher
• Conference Proceeding
• Publication Year
• Note Words
• By and/or About a Person
• Classification
• Corporate Author (Corporate Name)
• GPO Item Number
• ISBN/ISSN
• Series Title
• Music Publisher Number


4. If you have entered search terms in more than one Search for: box, select a Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) to connect the search statements in the separate boxes by clicking in the designated radial button to the left of each operator.



• AND will narrow the search by combining the terms: congress AND ethics
• OR will broaden the search by allowing either term to be found: college OR university
• NOT ensures that certain terms will not appear in the search results: education NOT special


5. (Optional) Specify how many records of the search results you want to have display on each page by clicking the drop-down arrow and selecting the number of records in the records per page selector.
6. Click the Search button to begin your search. You can also click the Reset button to clear the search page.

Limits

More Limits - Find More/Find Fewer
Can only be used with Boolean, title, and Any Word Anywhere.
Use to restrict searches to certain years, languages, types, mediums, or locations.
Use to apply one or more limits to a search.
These limits are retained between searches until removed by the user.
Limits from the More Limits page cannot be used with Quick Limits.

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