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You have several options for searching within a single collection or across multiple collections. You can quickly search for items by using the general search box, or click Advanced Search to use other types of searches.

The search box (in the heading of the page) searches across all fields in all collections for any term that you put in the search box, in any order. For example, if you search for "westward migration", the search engine searches for items containing "westward", or "migration".

Both the search box and Advanced Search support the use of a wildcard operator that enables you to search for approximate terms. Using an asterisk (*) at the end of a search term will search for results with none, or any number of any characters appended to the root search term. For example, test* will find results with the words "test," "tests," "tested" and so on.

The Advanced Search page enables you to select specific collections to search. First determine which search to use (across all fields, by selected fields, by proximity, or by date [by date may not always be available]). The default selection is to search across all fields. Then choose from the available search types and specify the collections to search.

Advanced Search offers four search types (types presented differ based on your initial choice of which search to use):

• All of the words — searches for all of the words in any order. Using Boolean logic, this search is similar to using "AND". For instance, if you entered "President Theodore Roosevelt" in this search box, the search results would contain only those items containing all three terms. Do not include "AND" with your search terms. The Boolean operator "AND" is used automatically with the All of the words search and will be ignored if it is entered as a search term.

• The exact phrase — searches for all of the words in the exact order. This is similar to using quotation marks in other search engines. For instance, if you were searching for "President Theodore Roosevelt", search results would contain only those items that contain the phrase "President Theodore Roosevelt".

• Any of the words — searches for any of the words entered in the search box. Using Boolean logic, this search is similar to using "OR". For instance, if you entered "President Theodore Roosevelt" in this search box, the search results would contain all items containing any of the three terms, including results with only "President", only "Theodore", and only "Roosevelt". Do not include "OR" with your search terms. The Boolean operator "OR" is used automatically with the Any of the words search and will be ignored if it is entered as a search term.

• None of the words — use this option with any of the other search boxes to exclude a term. Using Boolean logic, this search is similar to using "NOT". For instance, if you entered "President Roosevelt" in the exact phase search box and "Franklin" in this search box, the search results would contain all items containing "President Roosevelt" that do not contain the word "Franklin". Do not include "NOT" with your search terms. The Boolean operator "NOT" is used automatically with the None of the words search and will be ignored if it is entered as a search term.

The search options presented differ based on your initial choice to search across all fields, by selected fields, by proximity or by date. The default selection is to search across all fields.

Learn about:

1. Searching Across All Fields
2. Searching Selected Fields
3. Searching by Proximity
4. Searching by Date

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