They connect your search terms to either narrow or broaden your results.
The three main Boolean operators are AND, OR, & NOT.
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AND = reduces the number of results
ex: cats AND felines will only pull records that have both "cats" and "felines" mentioned in them.
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OR = increases the number of results.
ex: cats OR felines will pull records that have either the word "cats" or the word "felines," which will increase the number of possibilities.
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NOT = reduces the number of results
ex: cats NOT felines will pull records only mentioning "cats" and will exclude any record mentioning "felines."
Keyword Searching
Subject Headings/Controlled Vocabulary
To be used when searching with keywords.
Truncation and wildcard symbols can vary by database.
Limiting the Number of Databases
Filtering Within the Database