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OCLC Support

Advanced search

This article explains how to use the Advanced search to perform a precise and detailed search, how to search a selected field, use nested logic and more.

The Advanced Search allows you to perform a more precise and detailed search. Click the Advanced link from the top menu bar

Screenshot of the top menu bar in VDX

The Advanced search allows you to search a selected field, for example, Title, Author, ISBN or OCLC Number. A number of methods can improve the effectiveness of Advanced keyword.

  • Double quote around a phrase will only locate a record with these exact words in this order.

Screenshot of the Advanced Search screen in VDX with the search terms in double quotes

  • Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT allow you to combine search term.

Screenshot of the Advanced Search screen in VDX with the Boolean operator OR separating the search terms

  • Nested logic is also supported. EX: (Word1 or word2) not word3

Screenshot of the Advanced Search screen in VDX with the a search using nested logic displayedScreenshot of the Advanced Search screen in VDX

Click the drop-down arrow to select the relevant search field.

Screenshot of the Field drop-down list on the Advanced Search screen in VDX

Enter the search term(s) as required.

Screenshot of an example search in the Advanced Search screen in VDX

You can choose how many records are displayed on each results page by amending the Records per page field.

Click the Search button or press the Enter key to perform the search. The Reset Form link clears the search terms entered.

On the Advanced search, you may also select and deselect collections to be searched. The functionality is identical to that described for the Standard search.

From the Advanced Search, you may set filters on the type of material that NRE/VDX should return in the results list.

Screenshot of the available filters on the Advanced Search screen in VDX

To display or hide the filter options, click the filter name link or the arrow to the left of the filter name:

Screenshot of the filter categories available on the Advanced Search screen in VDX

The following filter options are available:

  • Filter results by Format(s) – Select one of more item formats from the list. NRE/VDX will limit your results to the format(s) you selected. If you don’t want NRE/VDX to limit your results by format, select all formats using the Select all option. By default, all formats are selected.
  • Filter results by Language(s) – Select one or more languages from the list. NRE/VDX will limit your results to works in the language(s) you selected. If you don’t want NRE/VDX to limit your results by language, select all languages using the Select all option.
  • Filter results by Level(s) – Select one or more levels from the list. NRE/VDX will limit your results to works intended for the audience(s) you selected. If you don’t want NRE/VDX to limit your results by level, select all levels using the Select all option.

NRE/VDX will perform the search and filter the results before displaying them. Because this may take some time, it is preferable to use the Filter Options in the top menu after the initial search results have been displayed.

Screenshot of the top menu bar in VDX with the Filter Options link called out

The same filter options are available. Click Submit to filter the search results.

Screenshot of the available filters on the Filter Options screen in VDX

 Note: It is recommended that you use the filter function after your search returned hits.