Search TipsYou do not need to enter authors last name first, nor do you need an exact title or
subject heading. Evergreen is also forgiving about plurals and alternate verb endings, so
if you enter dogs, Evergreen will also find items with
dog.Do not use an AND operator to join search terms. An AND operator is automatically used to join all search terms. So, a search
for golden compass will search for entries that contain
both golden and
compass.o Boolean operators such as and, or, not are not
considered special and are searched for like any other word. So, a search for
golden and compass will not return the title
golden compass. Putting it another way, there are no
stop words that are automatically ignored by the search
engine. So, a title search for the and or not of (and in
any order) yields a list of titles with those words. Don’t worry about white space, exact punctuation, or capitalization.White spaces before or after a word are ignored. So, search for
golden compass gives the same results as a search for
golden compass.A double dash or a colon between words is reduced to a blank space. So, a
title search for golden:compass or golden --
compass is equivalent to golden
compass.Punctuation marks occurring within a word are removed; the exception is _.
So, a title search for gol_den com_pass gives no result.
Diacritical marks, &, or | located anywhere in the search term are
removed. Words or letters linked together by . (dot) are joined together
without the dot. So, a search for go|l|den & comp.ass
is equivalent to golden compass. Upper and lower case letters are equivalent. So, Golden
Compass is the same as golden
compass.Enter your search words in any order. So, a search for compass
golden gives the same results as a search for golden
compass. Adding more search words gives fewer and more specific
results. This is also true for author searches. Both David Suzuki
and Suzuki, David will return results for the
same author.Use specific search terms. Evergreen will search for the words you specify, not
the meanings, so choose search terms that are likely to appear in an item
description. For example, the search luxury hotels will produce
more relevant results than nice places to stay.Search for an exact phrase using double-quotes. For example “golden
compass”. The order of words is important for an exact phrase search.
“golden compass” is different than “compass
golden”. White space, punctuation and capitalization are removed from exact phrases
as described above. So a phrase retains its search terms and its relative
order, but not special characters and not case. Two phrases are joined by and, so a search for “golden compass”
“dark materials” is equivalent to “golden compass”
and “dark materials”. To prevent stemming , use double quotes around a single word or a phrase. So, a
search for parenting will also return results for
parental but a search for
“parenting” will not. Do not use wildcards. Truncation using wildcards is not supported in Evergreen.
So, searching for comp* will not return results for
compass. Exclude a term from the search, using - (minus) or !
(exclamation point). For example, vacations –britain or
vacations !britain will search for materials on vacations
that do not make reference to Britain. Two excluded words are joined by and. So, a search for
!harry !potter is equivalent to
!harryand!potter. A + (plus) leading a term has no role and is removed. So,
+golden+compass is equivalent to golden
compass.You can form more complex searches using the Advanced Search features.Improving a Search With Few ResultsIf few hits were returned for your search is displayed, you may see some suggestions
for expanding or altering your search at the bottom of the s earch results list. These
alternate search terms are words that are similar to your search terms in spelling or
sound. Selecting one of the links performs a search with the new search terms.