Boolean and Keyword Searching for Music Materials As the Online Catalog continues to grow you will find that the ability to utilize more sophisticated searching techniques may enable you to find the materials you are looking for more efficiently. This handout is intended to help you get what you want from the catalog. The concept that will help refine your searches is called Keyword searching. This type of search looks for terms in a special file based on all of the meaningful words in certain fields of the bibliographic record. It is a useful kind of searching when you want to link together words from different parts of the bibliographic record, for example, a composer's name with a distinctive word from a title. All keyword searches are constructed in the form: k= NARROWING A SEARCH This will explain the rudiments of keyword searching. At Cornell not every field of the bibliographic record is indexed for keyword searching. At this point all words in author, title, series and subject fields are indexed. Boolean searching allows you to use the operators and, or, and not. And - combines two terms, so that all the retrieved records include both the terms. Or - is the inclusive term, the results must have one or the other of the terms but need not have both. Not - tells the system to eliminate records that include the term it precedes. Using these Boolean operators it is now possible to search by a combination of terms. For example an author name and a distinctive word or number from a title (N.B. the operator and is implicit in any search of two terms): k=mozart 467 would yield all recordings and scores of this concerto and books about it. If the search were further qualified k=mozart 467 not (sound or phono$) you would get only the printed music holdings, or any book written about this particular work. Similarly: k=mozart 467 (sound or phono$) would yield only the sound recordings of K.467. (N.B.In this system the $ sign is a truncation sign. All punctuation signs in the above examples ARE necessary to achieve appropriate results.) Similarly the search: k=mozart video$ will yield all the videos based on works by Mozart or relating to Mozart cataloged in our collection. LIMITING YOUR SEARCH If you wish to limit your search results to ONLY those written or performed by a given person use the coded .au. after the search term. Similarly for a subject word, use .su., and for title words use .ti. These three qualifiers are called Superfields. A search modelled on the one above could be constructed: k=mozart.au.467.ti. This search would yield all the printed editions and sound recordings of this work but would NOT include any book written about it. Similarly, a search k=gamelan.su. would produce all items having the subject term Gamelan. This search could be reduced further by a search such as: k=gamelan.su.java Besides the three generic field qualifiers: . au., .ti. and .su. you can also use specific field indicators. In some cases these will help you to limit your searches more specifcially. Useful field indicators are: 028 = label names and issue numbers and publishers' names and plate numbers 240 = terms from the uniform title POSITIONAL OPERATORS ADJ - words on either side of the operator must be next to each other in exactly the order specified: k=piano adj 4 should yield a list of piano 4 hands music. SAME - words must appear in the same Superfield , but in any order in those fields. Thus k=bilson same gardiner.au. will yield only those recordings in which both of these artists perform. WITH - words must appear in the same MARC field in any order, thus k=bass with viol will retrieve all bibliographic records where these two terms appear in the same MARC field. TRUNCATION Use the symbol $ to truncate a search. This is particularly important for musical genres where the term may be either singular or plural or where spelling opf the end of the word may vary from language to language: k=sympho$.ti. retrieves all titles containing the word symphony and symphonies. Be CAREFUL. Truncating too soon can make enormous unwanted search results, for example k=son$ti. will retrieve songs and sonatas. Do NOT do that. COMBINING OPERATORS (NESTING SEARCHES) You can use parentheses to keep the facets of your search statement logical and coherent k=mozart 467 (sound or phono$) This search retrieves all of the recordings of Mozart piano concerto K.467 HELPSCREENS For generic information about Keyword searching type k and press enter and you will get the system help screens. STOPWORDS Certain common words such as articles and prepositions have been rendered unsearchable. These would include the operator words. To do effective searching you should also avoid commonly used words such as journal, American, and society. Poorly thought out searches will slow the system for everyone. Stopwords include: a about all among an and* are as at be been between both but by do during each either for found from further has have however if in into is it its made make many more most must no not* of on or* same* several some such than that the their these they this to those through toward upon used using was were what which while who will with within would * AND, NOT, OR, and SAME may be used ONLY as connectors in a keyword search. Please be careful. KEYWORD SEARCH RESULTS 1. If your keyword search statement results in the respnse NO ENTRIES FOUND, check your statement for misspellings or stopwords. 2. Search results of more than one record will display in chronological order by date of publication, with the most recent publication first. 3. Keyword searches can retrieve a very large number of records. The system will only display the first 250 records. If your search retrieved a larger number than 250 records you need to find a way to narrow your search by using less common terms, limiting by language, date, format*, or by author, title, or subject. * Please note that the format delimiter "Music" will retrieve both sound recordings and printed music. Instructions for limiting for one or the other of these forms are given above. 4. Your current serach may be reviewed by typing r . The review command allows you to modify your serach and resubmit it without retyping the entire search. The review scree allows longer search commands (up to 203 characters) which may be necessary for a complex search.