The librarians are here to help you! Make an appointment with either Camilla or Laura here. You can always email us with questions or drop by our offices in Carpenter Library.
Camilla MacKay
Carpenter Library
Laura Surtees
Carpenter Library
Search Tips:
Remember to try different ways of spelling site names.
Phrase Searching:
An important strategy for one to employ when researching phrasal concepts (e.g., "Black-figure vases" or ""Ara Pacis") or conducting known-item searches for titles: "Cities of Alexander the Great"
Boolean Operators
The large number of citations in many catalogs and databases requires one to limit otherwise broad or general searches in order to retrieve a manageable and pertinent number of results. Conversely, overly narrow search terms can return too few results. One way of solving both problems is to use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), which allow one to limit or expand searches depending on his or her needs.
For example: a search for Athens AND democracy will return items that contain both terms
Athens OR democracy will return items that contain either "Athens" OR "democracy"
Nested Searching:
When pairing two or more keywords with another keyword, it is helpful to "nest" the former terms within a larger Boolean search. For example, ("grid plan" OR "Hippodamos) AND polis will return results for temple and any one (or both) of the parenthetical terms.
Truncation and Wildcards:
Most catalogs and databases enable users to search variations of keywords by using truncation (*) or wildcard (e.g., ?, $, !) symbols. For example: one could search for politic* to find poltic, politics, political, politicking, and so on.
Wildcard searching works similarly: a search for t??th will return results for teeth, tooth, tenth, and so on.
