Created by the University of Arkansas Libraries for a Popular Culture class.

1. Search
Tips
University of Arkansas Libraries
January 2014

2. How to Start a Search
 Focus/narrow
 Project
 Do
your topic
on the Vikings?
a subject search in the library catalog
to get a list of subtopics for “Vikings”

4. You may discover you’d
like to research Viking
folklore, or the Viking
period in Ireland.
If you like, you can click
on the topic to see the
books we have.

5. Here’s the catalog
record for the book.
It’s a good idea to start
with a book, especially a
reference book, to get
some background info
and terms for your topic.

6. Choosing Search Terms

Topic: collapse of Viking settlements in
Greenland

Pick out most important words


Viking and Greenland
Find synonyms for these words

Example: ????
Collapse
 Failure
 abandonment


7. Search Tips
 AND

Narrows your search results by adding more
requirements
 Vikings
and Greenland
 OR
 Expands

your search
Collapse or abandonment or failure
 NOT
 Narrows

your search
Vikings not Dublin

8. Search Tips

Quotes


Use for phrases
Brings back only occurences of the exact
phrase:


“ecological collapse”
Truncation


Use * to find variants of a word root
Ecolog* brings back ecological, ecology,
ecologist

9. Combine Search Operators
 Use
parentheses () to organize similar
terms:

Viking* and Greenland and (collapse or
failure or abandon*) not Iceland