ICRW LIBRARY
About the Library | Electronic Resources | Library Catalog | Tips on Searching | Classification System
Searching the ICRW Library Catalog on the Web
Enter your search criteria into the catalog search screen. If you fill in more than one box, results must meet all criteria. Click the Submit button or simply press enter on the keyboard. Results that meet your criteria are displayed.
To do a new search: Click the Reset button at the bottom of the search screen.
Finding words and phrases
For keyword searches, type a word or phrase to find those words, in that order. i.e., adolescent reproductive health is searched as an exact phrase. When searching in the title, author or subject fields, you can click on the Browse button to select from a list of choices for each field. You can search for multiple terms in any field by using the Boolean operators:
- & is the symbol to use for the word AND
- / is the symbol to use for the word OR
- ! is the symbol to use for the word NOT
- The truncation symbol is *
Type this... |
To find this... |
gender budget |
records that contain those words, in that order |
gender & budget |
records that contain both words, in any order |
gender / budget |
records that contain either word |
budget ! gender |
records that contain the word budget but not the word gender |
adolescen* |
adolescent, adolescents, adolescence |
Words joined by & / ! are evaluated in left-to-right order:
HIV & women / girls finds any record that includes the word girls, plus records on HIV and women.
Use parentheses to control evaluation order:
HIV & (women / girls) finds records focusing on HIV and women as well as HIV and girls.
Finding a Date
Use the symbols shown below in the date field to limit your search to items published during a certain period. Include spaces around the colon.
Symbol |
Meaning | Example |
< |
before | < 1990 finds anything published before, but not including 1990 |
<= |
on or before | <=1995 finds anything published in 1995 or before |
> |
after | >1998 finds anything published from 1999 on |
>= |
on or after | >=2001 finds anything published in 2001 or after |
= |
during | =2002 finds anything published in 2002 |
: |
between | 2000 : 2002 finds anything published from 2000 to 2002 |
Case and Punctuation
Case in query criteria is ignored (a search for india finds India).
Punctuation is also ignored, except for the and-or-not symbols (& / !) and the colon for range searches ( : ).