Search help
This page provided tips and tricks for searching items in Addison, the library catalog. If you need further assistance, please Ask a Librarian.
General
Links in the Catalog Banner
This section of the Help page defines the images and icons used in Addison and My Library Record.
This link takes you to the Virginia Tech home page.
This link takes you to the University Libraries' home page.
Use this link if you are going to access online materials (e.g. electronic journals, databases, e-books, etc) from off campus through Addison.
This link will allow you to search Addison, the library catalog.
This link will allow you to search Addison, the library catalog.
This link takes you to your online library account. In here, you can view and renew items checked out, check for outstanding fines, modify your contact information, save searches, etc.
This link takes you to all of the forms associated with the library catalog, such as request a search, appeal a fine, etc. Other forms the library uses are listed on the all forms page.
This link takes you to the Addison help page (this page).
Use this link to search for items held on reserve for your class. Online materials require you to log-in in order to view them.
Need help? Use this link to contact a librarian and get assistance with your research needs.
Icons in the Library Catalog
Icons in Addison for searching
Perform a simple (one box only) keyword search
Perform a search where you can modify fields searched, set limits, select dates, etc (multiple search boxes to type in information)
Begin a completely new search in the catalog
Perform another search in the same field (e.g. new title search, new author, new subject, etc)
Add terms, limits, dates, etc in the search and run it again. This option only appears in a keyword search.
Add terms, limits, dates, etc in the search and run again. This option appears in all searches except a keyword search.
Not finding any results? Use this feature to open the search to look for the term(s) as keyword(s).
This option only works in a keyword search. Once you view a record, you can use this button to find additional records that share at least one of the same subject headings as the item you are currently viewing (this will "OR" the subject headings).
For example, if you find the book Wildlife ecology, conservation, and management in a keyword search and click "find similar" the catalog will run a search looking for other materials that have at least one of the subject headings found in the record of Wildlife ecology, conservation, and management (so would find "wildlife management" OR "wildlife conservation" OR "animal ecology" in the subject headings of the results returned).
Icons in Addison for relevancy
Used when all the terms appear in the title field. If multiple terms are used, they must be found as a phrase and in the order typed.
Used when all the terms are located in the subtitle field. If multiple terms are used, they must be found as a phrase and in the order typed.
Used when all the terms appear anywhere in the record. If multiple terms are used, they must be found as a phrase and in the order typed.
Used when all the terms are located in the title and in any order.
Used when all the terms are located anywhere in the record, in any order.
See "relevance sorting" for more information on how to use this feature.
Icons in Addison to navigate through the pages and results
Go back to the current set of search results.
Move forward to the next record in the results list.
Move back to the previous record in the results list.
This option only shows the title, author, and year a work was published - creates a streamlined screen.
This option lets you see the call number and availability in the results list right away. Can create a long list of information for the results on each page.
Navigate back to the screen you just came from.
Close the current window.
Icons in Addison for added features of the catalog
For items not available on the shelves of the library you are currently in (e.g. item is held at storage, currently checked out, or in another library) use this to request the item.
To request all items from a list at one time.
To request a multiple number of selected items from a list at one time.
Clear the request form to start over.
Submit the information on the page to proceed.
Mark individual records to be exported, saved, or printed.
This option removes a specific item from the list of saved results.
This option removes all items from your list of saved results.
Use this option to view, print, email, export, etc your saved searches.
Use this option to request multiple items at once.
Find other resources about your topic (e.g. articles, book reviews, reference sources, search engines, etc).
See the "library side" of the record to view the fields used to catalog the item.
When viewing the checkin data for a serial, this icon brings up a display similar to a calendar of events.
When viewing the checkin data for a serial, this icon brings up a display where information about a particluar issue is displayed on a single line, the next issue is on the line below that, etc.
Icons in Addison for My Library Record
See all the books you currently have checked out.
Sort your items by the date in which they are due by before fines wil accrue.
Sort your items by the date when you checked them out.
Select individual items to renew online. More info about your specific borrowing privileges.
Use this icon to renew all items in your My Library Record in one click. More info about your specific borrowing privileges.
Do you owe money? If you do, this icon will appear in your My Library Record. Click on it to find out how much, and what materials were returned late that accrued the fines.
Update your permanent address(es) and telephone number(s), as well as your primary University Libraries main/branch information here.
View and check the status of all current requests on your My Library Record.
If you do not want to cancel all requests for materials you have asked for, select each individual item that you want to cancel, then click on this icon to remove those requests from your patron record.
Cancel all requests for materials you have placed in one click.
You can search Addison from within your My Library Record. This provides access to requesting materials without having to sign into your account for each request.
This feature allows you to save a search you perform frequently. You can also request that the system notifiy you of new materials added to the collection that match the search criteria. See "preferred search" below for more information.
Use this icon when you make changes to your saved searches. See "preferred search" below for more information.
To remove all saved searches, click on this icon.
Use this icon to enter or submit any information to the system.
Cancel any changes/requests that you thought about making (but decided not to) and return to the last page you were on in the system.
Login to ILLiad Interlibrary Loan system. Note the My Library Record does not display ILLiad checked out items or requests, as this data is stored in a separate system.
When finished viewing My Library Record, always make sure to use this icon to log out of the session.
Searching
This section goes over the various ways in which to search Addison, the University Libraries catalog at Virginia Tech.
Field searches vs Keyword searches vs Advance Keyword searches
There are two distinct ways to search the catalog. One is to use the fields (such as Title, Author, Call number, etc) and the other is to use a keyword search.
To conduct a search where you want the results to come back with the first term entered as the first term to be found, you would use a field search as shown here:
And the results would be 3335 records that start with the word "Environmental":
If you weren't sure where the term was found in a record, you could use a keyword seach as shown below:
Note, this will bring back the most number of results, as the term can be found anywherein the record, not just in the title:
To help narrow down a keyword search, you can limit the term to be found in a specific field (Title, Author, or Subject) by using the advanced keyword search as shown here:
The results here limit the term to be found somewhere in the title, but the item does not have to begin with the term searched in order to be retrieved as it did in the field search above.
Field Searching
There are many ways to search the library's catalog. Each of the help sections linked below will give you tips on searching for specific kinds of resources.
Enter all or part of an author's or artist's name, last name first.
For example:
- shakespeare william
- shakespeare
- angelou m
You may also type the full or partial name of an organization or group.
For example:
- united states congress
- american medical
Search Example
When you run an author field search, the results will come back looking similar to this:
In this case, there are 38 individual author entries that match the author = shakespeare, with 1815 individual entries found across the authors listed.
Enter all or part of an author's or artist's name, last name first. You may also type the full or partial name of an organization or group.
For example:
- shakespeare william
- shakespeare
- united states congress
Type as many or as few of the words in the title as you want, in any order.
For example:
- merchant of venice
- Venice
Search Example:
Any records that have the matching criteria (e.g. "shakespeare" in the author or added author field, "venice" in the title or added title field) will be returned in this search.
Although "Venice" is not apparent in the title in the first result, it is listed in the comments as an added title for this record.
Library of Congress Call Number: Type as much or as little of the call number as you wish. Punctuation and spaces do not matter. Examples: PS1999 H25 Z98; ld5679; qh546.w.
Local Call Number: Search for videos, sound recordings, and other non-standard call numbers. Examples: DVD 77; Video 1451; Compact Disc 452.
Search Example:
In this case, there are 81 items that start with the call number "PS 121".
In this case, only one record matches the entry for "PS121 K57".
Search Example:
Same as with the call number search the more information you enter, the fewer results will be returned, as fewer records are able to meet the criteria:
Enter all or part of the title, starting at the beginning. Title words must be in exact order. You may include English initial articles ("The", "An", "A") in your search, but you should exclude non-English articles, such as "die," "las," or "un.". If you are unsure of the title, try a Keyword search.
For example:
- old man and the sea
- old man and the
When searching for items whose first word looks like an initial article, i.e. "A Is For America" or "THE Journal," repeat the initial word twice to account for the system's dropping of initial articles. For example, search "a a is for america."
Search Example:
When you run a title field search, the results will come back looking similar to this:
The more terms you enter, the fewer results will be found, but the terms must be entered in the correct order for results to be found. If they are not in the correct order or spelled incorrectly, the following will be displayed:
Notice in the above example, the term environmental is missing the second "n" (enviromental).
Only use Library of Congress Subject Headings for this search. If you don't know the exact phrasing of the subject heading, you can use a keyword search in the subject heading.
Search Example:
The more terms you enter, the fewer results will be found:
But the terms must be entered in the correct order for results to be found. If they are not in the correct order or spelled incorrectly, the following will be displayed:
When you are uncertain of the exact order for a subject heading, you can use the "Advanced search" and limit the terms to be found anywhere in the subject heading.
In this case, the first search for the subject retrieved no results:
So, by going to the Advanced Search and entering the terms to be located anywhere in the subject field,
a list of results is retrieved:
By examining the records, you'll see where the search terms were located in the subject field:
While the subject term "Gender Studies" is not used, you'll notice the other subject that appears is "Gender Identity." This would be the recognized subject term to use in order to find information about this topic.
ISSN/ISBN: Type as much or as little of the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) or ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) as you want. Punctuation and spaces may be omitted and are generally ingnored. Examples:0060254920; 0303-7207.
Search Example:
Same as with the call number search the more information you enter, the fewer results will be returned, as fewer records are able to meet the criteria:
Keyword Searching
Keyword searching is a more powerful way to search the library catalog. It permits the use of adjacency, truncation, proximity operators, and field limits to home in on precisely the resources you need. For additional information on how to effectively use keyword searching, click on the links below.
| Search Tips | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple Words | When searching multiple words the system will automatically supply the Boolean "and" operator between each word; multiple words entered for the search will all occur somewhere in the retrieved records though not necessarily in the order entered. Both examples on the right will retrieve the same results. | world health organization world and health and organization |
| Phrase Searches | Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes will appear together in all results exactly as typed. | "world health organization" |
| Wildcards | ||
|---|---|---|
| * | The asterisk ('*') matches up to five non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word. For example, "inter*" will match "internal" and "internet", but will not match "international". The '*' wildcard may only appear after at least two characters. The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string. For example, "colo*r" would match both "color" and "colour". |
environment* polic*
|
| ** | Matches any number of non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word. For example, "inter**" will match all words that begin with "inter" (e.g., "internal", "internet", "international", etc.). The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string. |
comp** |
| ? | You may use a question mark ('?') to replace a single character anywhere within a word. | wom?n |
| Boolean Operators and Field Limits | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boolean Operators | Use AND or OR to specify multiple words in any field, any order. Use AND NOT to exclude words. These operators may be entered in either uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case (e.g., "AND", "and", and "And" are equivalent). |
stocks and bonds stocks and bonds stocks and not bonds | ||||||||||
| Nesting | Use parentheses to construct complex searches. | (annotated bibliography) and child* (alaska or canada) and (adventure and not vacation) | ||||||||||
| Proximity Operators | The NEAR operator is used to retrieve records that contain the specified words or phrases within ten words of each other in the same indexed field. The WITHIN operator is similar to the NEAR operator, but allows the user to specify the maximum number of words that may appear between the specified words. WITHIN 10 and NEAR are equivalent. The BEFORE and AFTER operators are used to specify order of keywords in result records. |
international near conference fractal within 3 geometry classical BEFORE conditioning salivate AFTER dog | ||||||||||
| Field limits | Field limits may be specified by typing a field limit operator before the word or phrase to be searched. A field limit causes the system to search only the specified field for the specified word(s). The following field limits are supported:
|
(a:twain) and (t:huck*) (a:united and a:states) and (d:handicapped or d:disabled) | ||||||||||
| Search Tips | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple Words | When searching multiple words the system will automatically supply the Boolean "and" operator between each word; multiple words entered for the search will all occur somewhere in the retrieved records though not necessarily in the order entered. Both examples on the right will retrieve the same results. | world health organization world and health and organization |
| Phrase Searches | Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes will appear together in all results exactly as typed. | "world health organization" |
| Wildcards | ||
|---|---|---|
| * | The asterisk ('*') matches up to five non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word. For example, "inter*" will match "internal" and "internet", but will not match "international". The '*' wildcard may only appear after at least two characters. The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string. For example, "colo*r" would match both "color" and "colour". |
environment* polic* |
| ** | Matches any number of non-space characters, starting at the specified position in the word. For example, "inter**" will match all words that begin with "inter" (e.g., "internal", "internet", "international", etc.). The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string. |
comp** |
| ? | You may use a question mark ('?') to replace a single character anywhere within a word. | wom?n |
Relevance Sorting
Keyword search results are usually grouped by relevance to bring the most likely titles to the top of the list. Each group represents a similar level of relevance and results are sorted within the group by date or title.
The order in which you enter terms to be searched is used to determine relevancy. For an example, run a keyword search on wildlife ecology then run a keyword search on ecology wildlife and see what happens with the results you get.
The Hokie feet are used to help determine the most relevant items based on the search terms entered. See "Icons for relevancy" for examples of what the Hokie feet look like and what each number of feet means in terms of how relevant items returned are to the search terms used.
To get an ungrouped result set, 1) perform any search that is not a keyword search, or 2) use boolean operators to form a complex query.
Requests (formerly Recalls/Holds)
You now request checked-out books directly from Addison. You do not need to fill out a separate form. If a book is checked out, you will either see a Request link "Request item" next to it or a Request icon in navigation icon list at the top of the search page. Click on the Request button, and Addison will ask you to put in your patron information (name and ID number). You will then pick the item that you're requesting, and submit your request. No more need to fill in forms!
When you submit a request, the system will do one of two things.
- If the current borrower has had the book for 21 or more days, then a notice will be sent asking them to immediately return it.
- If the current borrower has had the book for fewer than 21 days, a notice will be sent indicating that the book is now due at the end of the 21-day period that began when the book was checked out.
Request Storage Items
You can now request items held in the remote Storage building be delivered to the branch of your choice directly from Addison. You do not need to fill out a separate form. If an item is in Storage, you will either see a Request link "Request item" next to it or a Request icon at the top of the item's full record screen.
Click on the Request button, and Addison will ask you to put in your patron information (name and ID number). Choose your preferred pick up location (branch), then select the items for volumes you want. (There may be only one choice.) No more need to fill in forms!
You will receive notification when your item has arrived at the branch location you chose.
When requesting Special Collections items from Storage, you must select Special Collections as your pick up location. Otherwise there will be a delay in filling your request.
Other Tips
- Phrase Search: the Addison keyword search is an "AND" search, not a "phrase" search unless you use quotation marks. If nothing is found using the default "AND" search, the system automatically switches the search to "OR". This is a very different kind of search, and can easily return thousands of results. Reduce the number of search terms, or change your search terms to prevent this switch.
- Capitalization: capitalization does NOT matter.
- Punctuation: punctuation in most cases converts to spaces, such as:
Semicolon
Backtick
Period
Equal Sign
Under Score
Ampersand
Forward Slash
Caret
The following symbols are included in the phrase indexes and are NOT converted into spaces:
At Symbol
Pound Sign
Percent Symbol
Colon
The following symbols are used as special operators in keyword searches:
The ampersand can be used in place of the boolean operator AND.
cat & mouse
The vertical bar or pipe symbol can be used in place of the boolean operator OR.
phobos | deimos
The exclamation point can be used in place of the boolean operator NOT. Do not include a space after the symbol.
mercury !planet
The tilda can be used in place of the proximity operator NEAR.
fractal ~ geometry
Addison Guesstimate
What is Addison Guesstimate?
As you type under Keyword Search on the main Addison screen. Addison will preview your search notifing you of the approximation of results. You may look for content containing "Snoop Doggy Dog". If you type "dog" an approximation for the number results will appear above the search bar. You may further filter results by typing something more specific like "doggy".
How does this work?
Addison Guesstimate uses a set of methods called AJAX to look at your search entry and preview it to get specific information from that preview.
That is nice, how do I turn it off?
Below the search form is a check box that is labeled Enable Addison Guesstimate. If there is no check mark here then Addison Guesstimate will not activate. If you have cookies enabled your browser will remember to leave it unchecked each time you visit the page.
Sometimes it is red?
This often happens when more than one word is entered into the search input. To avoid some confusion, Addison will tell you if you search entry has been changed. Guesstimate is able to notify you of this before you search. When the guesstimate text is red you can hover over it and it will tell you what it will search with your current entry.
This is the advantage of Addison Guesstimate. If you are looking for the movie "Training Day" and you type it without quotes you will get a far greater number than the same entry wrapped around quotes.
Am I missing something?
In order to see the options described your browser must be Internet Explorer 6.0 (or newer), Netscape 7.1 (or newer), Mozilla 1.4 (or newer), Firefox 0.8 (or newer), Opera 7.54 (or newer), or Safari 1.2.2 (or newer). You'll also need to have both JavaScript and cookies enabled.
Preferred Search
Preferred Searches are search strategies you repeatedly use. Ideally, your search returns a limited number of results. You can configure Preferred Searches to regularly send you email updates, listing new items that match your search criteria.
To save/add and view your "Preferred Search" List
- Log into My Library Record
- Click on "Search Addison"
- Perform a search, using any earch type and applying any limiting options
- Click on "Save as Preferred Search" button (nothing much changes to let you know this worked until you go on to the next step)
- Click "Return to My Library Record"
- Click on "My Saved Searches" button
To edit/organize "Preferred Search" List
Delete individual items -- check individual items, check the box under Mark for Remove and then click Update Marked Searches
Clear the list -- remove all items by clicking Delete All Saved Seraches
Email the list -- check the box under Mark for Email and then click. E-mails of newly acquired items will be sent on the 1st and 16th of each month at 11 p.m.
Addison Mobile
What is Addison Mobile?
AddisonMobile provides a lightweight view of Addison customized for users of wireless PDA's, such as the Palm or Blackberry handheld devices, and Internet-enabled cell phones. The AddisonMobile server will attempt to detect the type of PDA you are using and deliver displays formatted for that device, without extra graphics, JavaScript, or cookies that can confuse some PDA's. AddisonMobile may also be useful for users of screen readers or special software designed to aid visual handicaps.
AddisonMobile allows you to search Addison from any location with wireless access. You may search the catalog from the classroom, while browsing the stacks, or from an Internet cafe. You may place requests for books, renew books, cancel holds, and view pending requests on library materials.
AddisonMobile does not display clickable links to Internet resources such as electronic books and journals. Addison Mobile does not display journal holdings.