Refine an advanced search

Browse indexes

Browse the indexes before you search to check the spelling or format of your search terms and phrases. To access the Browse indexes feature, click the Browse Index button () in the Search for: area.

Limits

Select from the limits displayed on the advanced search menu if your search produced too many records. Remove previously selected limits if your search produced too few or no records. You can limit by year of publication or items in your library in any database.

Use the Ranking Results feature

FirstSearch can rank your results by relevance or year of publication. A relevance rank is a measure of how closely a record matches your search terms. Records with the highest relevance rank will be displayed at the top of the results list. By contrast, a rank by year will display the most recently published records at the top of the results list.

To organize your results list by rank, choose a rank option from the drop-down list. The default option is no ranking. Only the 1000 most highly-ranked records will be displayed.

Browse indexes

Browse the indexes before you search to check the spelling or format of your search terms and phrases. To access the Browse indexes feature, click the Browse Index button () in the Search for: area.

Use limiters

Select from the limits displayed on the advanced search menu if your search produced too many records. Remove previously selected limits if your search produced too few or no records.

Find preferred subjects (Library of Congress Subject Headings)

Use the Find preferred subjects feature to help you find alternate terms for your search. This can be especially helpful if your terms are spelled correctly but not giving you the number of results you need. To access the Find preferred subjects feature, click the Subjects button () in the top right corner of the Search screen.

Find related authors or subjects

From the List of Records screen, click the Related Authors button () or the Related Subjects () button to find related authors or subjects based on your current results set.

Use the Limit feature

From the List of Records screen, click the Limit button () to use the Limit search feature with your current results set.

Use the Ranking Results feature

FirstSearch can rank your results by relevance or year of publication. A relevance rank is a measure of how closely a record matches your search terms. Records with the highest relevance rank will be displayed at the top of the results list. By contrast, a rank by year will display the most recently published records at the top of the results list.

To organize your results list by rank, choose a rank option from the drop-down list. The default option is no ranking. Only the 1000 most highly-ranked records will be displayed.

Use limiters

Select from the limits displayed on the advanced search menu if your search produced too many records. Remove previously selected limits if your search produced too few or no records.

Use the Ranking Results feature

FirstSearch can rank your results by relevance or by date of publication. A relevance rank is a measure of how closely a record matches your search terms. Records with the highest relevance rank will be displayed at the top of the results list. By contrast, a rank by date will display the most recently published items at the top of the results list.

To organize your results list by rank, choose a rank option from the Rank by: drop-down list. The default option is no ranking. Only the 1000 most highly-ranked records will be displayed.

Find preferred subjects (Library of Congress Subject Headings)

Use the Find preferred subjects feature to help you find alternate terms for your search. This can be especially helpful if your terms are spelled correctly but not giving you the number of results you need. To access the Find preferred subjects feature, click the Subjects button () in the top right corner of the Search screen.

Browse indexes

Browse the indexes before you search to check the spelling or format of your search terms and phrases. To access the Browse indexes feature, click the Browse Index button () in the Search for: area.

Use limiters

Select from the limits displayed on the advanced search menu if your search produced too many records. Remove previously selected limits if your search produced too few or no records.

refine by	format or additional instruction
Anno	Use yyyy-yyyy for a year range.
Lingua	Select Show all languages... to generate the full list of language options.
Number of Libraries	Limits your search to items held by 5 or more, 50 or more, or 500 or more libraries.
Limit type to:	Click the Help button () in the Limit type to: section to read more about document types.
Limit availability to:	You can limit your search to specific institutions by doing one or both of the following:   Check Items in my library to limit your search to your local library. Enter one or more OCLC symbols in Library Code to limit your search to additional libraries. Select the Find codes... link to view a list of valid Library Code

Use the Ranking Results feature

You can order your search results by any of the following: Number of Libraries, Relevance, Date or Accession Number. See Select a rank option in Group_Catalog or WorldCat for more information.

Find preferred subjects (Library of Congress Subject Headings)

Use the Find preferred subjects feature to help you find alternate terms for your search. This can be especially helpful if your terms are spelled correctly but not giving you the number of results you need. To access the Find preferred subjects feature, click the Subjects button () in the top right corner of the Search screen.

Use limiters

Select from the limits displayed on the advanced search menu if your search produced too many records. Remove previously selected limits if your search produced too few or no records.

refine by	format or additional instruction
Anno	Use yyyy-yyyy for a year range.
Lingua	Select Show all languages... to generate the full list of language options.
Number of Libraries	Limits your search to items held by 5 or more, 50 or more, or 500 or more libraries.
Limit type to:	Click the Help button () in the Limit type to: section to read more about document types.
Limit availability to:	You can limit your search to specific institutions by doing one or both of the following:   Check Items in my library to limit your search to your local library. Enter one or more OCLC symbols in Library Code to limit your search to additional libraries. Select the Find codes... link to view a list of valid Library Code