Keyword Search

Voyager Help Menu | New Exact Search | New Keyword Search

To begin a search using the default settings, enter the word(s) you want to search for in one or more of the Search for: input boxes, then click the Go button (the enter key will not start a search on this screen). You may change the default "display 25 records per page" by clicking on the drop-down menu to select another option (10, 50, or 100).

Use the following options to. . .

• COMBINE SEARCH TERMS -- Specify how multiple words are treated within a single input box.
  For example, words entered in a single input box as: real estate investment

  with this setting ...	...which assumes:	...would be searched as if:
  all of these	AND between words	real (and) real (and) estate (and) investment
  any of these	OR between words	real (or) estate (or) investment
  as a phrase	adjacent words	real estate investment

• CHOOSE SEARCH TYPE -- Select from the pull-down menu of options to search in (Title, Author, Subject, Publisher, etc.). All searches done using the Keyword Search screen are relevance searches that match the search term(s) if they occur anywhere in the chosen options.

  In Voyager, the relevance algorithm applies the following factors:

  • Word weight based on uniqueness of search term(s) within the database
  • Proximity of search term(s) to each other within the bibliographic record
  • Field weight (e.g., subject heading, author field, title field, etc.) based on the data field in which the term(s) occur; some of these such as subject carry extra "bonus" weight
    • COMBINE SEARCHES -- Specify how the searches are to be combined if more than one input box is used.

      This setting ...	... would find:
      AND	results from both (or all) of the input boxes
      OR	results from either (or any) of the input boxes
      NOT	results that exclude the terms entered

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    Voyager Help Menu | New Exact Search | New Keyword Search