VDX User Document: VDX Version 2.74
Bib Searching 101
Bib Searching 101
Selecting a “home” search profile
Though it is possible to create your own search profiles in INFO this is not common practice as
there are already sufficient pre-configured search profiles available.
Users should always start out with their “home library” profile when searching. You have to start
somewhere. Select the profile that best represents your geographic area or contains your home
library’s catalogue.
Example: If your home library is Kenora Public Library (holdings are in JASI) then
you would use the OLS-North [shared] profile from the list of options.
Selecting an alternate search profile
You never need to select a different profile to search against UNLESS you do not get the desired
results on your search.
1. Select a new search profile and re-key your search terms
OR
2. Execute the search from the Search History screen. History is a list of the searches you
have performed during your logged in session [when you end your session history is cleared].
Select History link at the top of the bib search screen.
Select Edit on the search to have VDX present the search terms in an Advanced Search
screen. Select a new profile from the list of profile options and Submit.
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Bib Searching 101
Simple or Advanced search – which one to use?
EXAMPLE: You want book Life strategies by Dr. Phil McGraw
Simple Search is key word appearing ANY where within the bibliographic record and is not limited to
Title, Subtitle, Notes as it was in earlier versions of VDX. You can enter words randomly in any order
or you can term browse words in a specific order by putting quotation marks around the words.
Simple - Search for: Life strategies
Simple - Search for: “Life strategies”
Simple - Search for: “Life strategies” McGraw
EXAMPLE:
220 results
80 results
31 results
You want Nancy Friday’s psychology book about mothers and daughters
If you are not sure what the exact title or subject headings may be you can use Simple Search to
combine key words from the TITLE and AUTHOR.
Search for:
mother daughter Friday
 You retrieve My mother, my self : the daughter's search for identity / Nancy Friday but
some of the results have nothing to do with this title. Check details on one of the match hits
to get a subject heading.
In Advanced try a subject search with Boolean operators to get specific results.
Subject Heading
Author
EXAMPLE:
mothers and daughters
and
Friday
and
You have a school project on black holes, an astronomy phenomena
In Simple choose your home profile and enter:
Search for:

“black holes” astronomy
127 results have phrase “black holes” and word astronomy anywhere in the record.
In Advanced try a Title specific search
Title

"black holes" astronomy
and
55 results have phrase or word appearing in Title, alternate title, summary, or notes
In Advanced try a subject search with Boolean operators

Subject Heading
black holes
and
Subject Heading
astronomy
and
208 results have these words in subject fields but not necessarily appearing in Title,
alternate title, summary, or notes.
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Bib Searching 101
EXAMPLE: You want a video of John Steinbeck’s GRAPES OF WRATH
Because cataloguing varies (video, video cassette, videorecording) it is helpful to use the * wildcard
and enter it as video*
In Simple choose your home profile and enter:
Search for:
grapes of w rath video*
 Note that many of the results have nothing to do with Steinbeck’s novel.
In Simple include the author’s surname for more specific results:
Search for:
grapes of w rath steinbeck video*
In Advanced try the search with Boolean operators:
Title
grapes of w rath
and
Author
steinbeck
and
Any
video*
 Why do you get fewer results in ADVANCED than the same words entered in the
previous SIMPLE search?
o
o
ADVANCED limits specific words to specific fields as in grapes of wrathspecifically to Title field and Steinbeck specifically to Author field.
SIMPLE pulled the search words from “ANY” place in the record such as
Subject, Contents, Notes etc.
In Advanced try the search with “and not” Boolean operator to strip videos from the results:
Title
grapes of w rath
and
Author
steinbeck
and not
Any
video*
 It may not always be 100% based on cataloguing nuances but for the most part you can
strip video* formats from your results and retrieve print and audio results.
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Bib Searching 101
EXAMPLE: You want travel books on Mexico published in 2007
In Simple choose your home search profile and enter:
Search for:
mexico
 You get far too many hits.
Some are travel guides. Some are 2007. There are also
cookbooks and novels with things like “New Mexico – fiction” in the subject heading.
In Simple use the same profile and include word “guidebooks”:
Search for:
mexico guidebooks
 Adding word “guidebooks” which is a common term used for travel titles will result in
more exact hits. The word mexico, the word guidebooks are pulled from ANY where
in the record in a Simple search.
In Advanced use the same profile and search terms with Boolean operators:
Subject Heading
mexico guidebooks
and
Date
2007
and
 Surprisingly you get very few hits.
What is going on?
Select Status link at the top of the screen to see what targets are fetching. In this
example many targets are responding “Unsupported”. This is a clue that the target
does not support a search on a field you have used, in this case DATE. How the
search is submitted (either as a SIMPLE “Any” or an ADVANCED “Within defined
field”) along with how a location’s target has been configured to accept searches has
a bearing on results.
Try again, using “Any” instead of DATE with better results:
Subject Heading
mexico guidebooks
and
Any
2007
and
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Bib Searching 101
Using Asterisk * on a Search
Use an asterisk wildcard when you want to expand on the word you are searching.
Example 1: You want results to include “Nurse” or “Nurses” or “Nursing”
Type of Search
Entered
Results
Results consist of
Simple
Nurs*
high
Results have word Nurse, Nurses or Nursing
“any” place in the record but also get many
children’s Mother Goose type books and child
care and garden centre books because of the
word “Nursery”.
Advanced
Subject = Nurs*
AND NOT
Subject = Nursery
less
Get Nurse, Nurses, Nursing in the subject
headings but stripped out Nursery (garden
and children’s books).
Example 2: You want your results to include “Schnauzer” or “Schnauzers”.
Type of Search
Entered
Results
Simple
schnauzer
schnauzer*
16
19
Results have word “any” place in the record.
It could be a juvenile picture book with the
word “Schnauzer” in the title or dog breed
books with word “Schnauzer” in subject.
Advanced
Any = schnauzer
Any = schnauzer*
16
19
Get same results as the SIMPLE search
above because SIMPLE searches are an ANY
search
Title = schnauzer
Title = schnauzer*
15
25
The word should appear in Title, subtitle,
contents notes
Subject = schnauzer
Subject = schnauzer*
24
28
The word should appear in Subject Headings
vary based on
profile used
What results consist of
Using Quotation Marks on a Search
In this example it is helpful to use quotation marks to identify words as a phrase.
Type of Search
Entered
Results
What results consist of
vary based on
profile used
Simple
Advanced
sue miller
117
Some for sue miller and some for “sue” or
“miller” elsewhere in record. You could get
“The Dusty Miller” by Sue Canoe.
“sue miller”
84
all 84 for this author
Author = sue miller
(or miller sue)
144
all 144 with this author Sue Miller in Author
field
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Punctuation Makes a Difference
In this example
Search Simple
 without any punctuation ….and you get 3 hits
 with space before and after colon as displayed in first 2 hits …. you get 0 hits
 with no space before and one space after the colon ….and you get same 3 hits
 with comma as in Hit 3 ….and you get same 3 hits
Search Advanced Title
 without any punctuation…. and get same 3 hits
 with space before and after colon as displayed in first 2 hits ….and you get 0 hits
 with no space before and one after…. and you get same 3 hits
 with comma as in Hit 3 ….and get same 3 hits
This demonstrates that no punctuation works in either SIMPLE or ADVANCED and that
<space> : <space> as displayed in the top two hits should never be used, as you get 0 hits.
…. So don’t use any punctuation at all is usually
the best practice.
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Bib Searching 101
Save your bib search results for future reference
Use the Save Search
button on search results to save the search to a file.
Select Searches link to see your saved searches.
You can Re-Run the search as it was originally run.
You can Edit the search to change how it was composed or select a different search
profile to run it against.
You can Delete the saved search. Saved searches are saved indefinitely, until the user
deletes them.
Save specific bib search hits to a file to email, print, or request later in
your logged in session
You have the option to save specific records in search results to a Saved List to print, email, or
request later. This is session specific, it is important to note that the Saved List is cleared when
you Logout of your session.
Use the Save
link on the individual bib hit result to save it.
To view your saved items, select Saved List link.
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