Search hints
Title
You can enter a complete or part of a title. The search will be done in all title related fields. When used in combination with "exact search", make sure you enter the complete title.
Author/Editor
Enter a personal name (Joseph Rotblat or Rotblat, Joseph) or the name of an institution (SIPRI). The search will be done in all author related fields.
ISBN
Searches on ISBN should be done both with and without hyphens (9780199533565 or 978-0-19-953356-5) due to changes in cataloguing practice.
Truncation
A search is done on every word you enter except "the". If you enter, for example "The use of force" in the title, the result list will display all books containing "use" AND "of" AND "force" in the title. "The" will be discarded.
Use the * symbol (asterisk) or the % symbol as a substitute for zero or more characters to find matches that contains portions of words or phrases. Be careful not to truncate too far, or you will retrieve unrelated terms.
Left-hand truncation
"*missiles" will retrieve entries for all documents ending with the word missiles, for exampel "ballistic missiles", "cruise missiles" etc.
Right-hand truncation
"chemic*" will retrieve entries for all documents containing words or phrases beginning with chemic, for example "chemicals", "chemical disarmament" etc. Right-hand truncation is automatically activated in the catalogue so you do not have to truncate in these cases.
Embedded truncation
You may also use the * symbol or the % symbol to find variant spellings within words: "defen*e" will find both "defence" and "defense".
Dictionary search
if you click on ... on the right of title/author/subject, you can search existing values in the library.
