By default, the library website is set to basic search, where a single query box appears.
With this type of generic search, you may find items with keywords (subject, author, title, date of publication, editor, ISBN), using a single word or phrase with several words.
To narrow search results or to initiate a more complex search, choose the advanced search functionality, or use search filters with indexes. To find a specific publication, enter the title and author in the advanced search box.
This functionality is a more complete form to specify various criteria, which appears by clicking on “Advanced Search”, under the magnifying glass icon.
Advanced search includes different boxes, where users specify their criteria, or “index”. This includes different types of information to describe an item (title, author, editor, year of publication, language, ISBN, etc.).
You may add search boxes with the “+ Add Row” button.
Click here to access the index list and definitions. Please also refer to the Index Searching section in this guide.
Advanced search includes other options:
To avoid incomplete search results, follow these guidelines for keywords:
| Case | The case does not affect search results. Keywords are upper case, lower case, or a combination of both. However, Boolean operators (see below) are upper case. |
| Stop Words |
Avoid French or English stop words (le, la, les, du, de, des, a, an, but, the, etc.) because the Sofia discovery tool does not take them into account . Use quotation marks (" ", «») for stop words that must be taken into account with the search. Example: The = “the”. |
| Punctuation and Diacritical Signs | Avoid punctuation or diacritical signs. Example: é=e, à=a, ç=c, ù=u, etc. |
| Apostrophe (‘) | Avoid apostrophes (‘) and the letter preceding them, or omit the apostrophe and space between the words preceding and following the apostrophe. To include all variations, link both options with a Boolean OR. Example: for l’Étranger, enter etranger OR letranger |
| Figures | Figures may be entered in numerals or letters. |
| Hyphens |
Use hyphens (-) or replace hyphens with a space. Example: sans-abri, sans abri |
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