Literature Database Search Tips

Selecting the Literature Database radio button beneath the search box will perform a basic search of the BC Libraries Catalog. For more advanced Literature Database results, visit the Work & Family Literature Database homepage to perform an advanced search.

Here are a few tips on searching the Literature Database:

• Boolean operators.
  You may use the Boolean operators AND and OR and NOT in your search string. When using more than one operator, use parentheses to ensure the correct order of operations.

  • Example 1: type heart or cardiac to retrieve all records having the words heart or cardiac in them.
  • Example 2: to find domestic violence or family violence type: (domestic or family) and violence.

• Wildcard characters.
  Use the ? (or *) character to find matches that contain portions of words.

  • Example 1: nation? will retrieve nations, national, nationality, nationalism, etc.
  • Example 2: ?ology will retrieve anthropology, archaeology, psychology, etc.

  The ? (or *) character may also be used to find variant spellings.

  • Example: lab?r will find both the American spelling, labor, and the British spelling, labour.

• Case sensitive.
  Lower-case letters will find matches of capitalized words and capitalized words will find lower case.

  • Example: the word computer will find matches for computer, Computer and COMPUTER.