LibrarySearch Help

You can conduct a "basic search" in LibrarySearch by starting with the search box on the library homepage. LibrarySearch defaults to searching by Keyword like any search engine, but you can change this to instead search by Title, Author or Subject. There is more information about what each of these options means below. For additional search options, please see the Performing an Advanced Search page.

Generally, when you enter your search terms into the search box, LibrarySearch will look for those words in close proximity to each other. Putting quotes around your search terms (ex: "Crater Lake") will search for those terms together and in that exact order.

Keyword searching mimics the way other search engines, like Google, generate results. The search will take the words you enter and generate a result list of items that contain the words. Try starting with a few words that represent the topic.

Note that if you are starting a Basic Search from within LibrarySearch (instead of from the Libraries home page), all searches are keyword searches unless you use Advanced Search options.

If you know the title of the item you are looking for conduct a Title search instead of a keyword search. Change the menu to Title and enter the item title in the search. This will bring the item you are looking for to the top if it is available through the UO Libraries. Putting your search terms in quotation marks (as mentioned above) can help you retrieve results with the exact title instead of items with similar titles.

The Author search allows you to look for works created by a particular scholar/author by typing in part or all of the author's name.

The Subject search is similar to keyword searching, but rather than matching by word, the results are based on subject tags attached to the item. Our books all receive Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) when they are added to our catalog. Other items in LibrarySearch may have subjects assigned by the publisher or author.

You don't necessarily need to know an official subject term to get useful results. You can search for a general topic, find an item that looks relevant, click on it, and scroll down to the "Subjects" section to see the related subject headings. Then you can click on the relevant subject heading to get results that are assigned the same subject heading.