Advanced Search Help

<- Search posters <- African Posters from the Melville J. Herskovits Library at Northwestern University Advanced Search Help | African Posters from the Herskovits Library at Northwestern

You may choose where in the database you would like to search for words or phrases. Advanced searching techniques also enable you to combine search terms using Boolean operators ("and", "or", "not") and proximity ("near", "followed by") operators.

Example:

Search for	Within
	Within

Search for Text Box: Type the search word or phrase here.

Within Text Box: You may limit the scope of your search by indicating a specific field of the database. The default is any text. Select other options from the pull-down list. Each option is described below. Click on the word "more" to get detailed information about several options.

Artist	Creator of the poster; the artist who signed the poster
Title	Title of the poster as it appears in the catalog record
Date	Publication date of the poster
Agency	Organization responsible for issuing the poster
Summary	Description of the image content of the poster
Subject	Subject term(s) that describe the poster
Language	Language(s) of statements printed on the poster
Country	Country or geopolitical entity featured in the poster
Topic	Thematic categories under which the posters are grouped
Object No.	Unique number assigned to each poster within the topical categories

Operator Text Box: Combine the results from the first search row with the results from the second search row using Boolean or proximity operators. The default is And. Select other options from the pull-down list. Each option is described below.

And	Finds all records containing one or more matches from both the first text box and the second text box
Or	Finds all records containing one or more matches from either the first text box or the second text box
But Not	Finds all records containing what was entered in the first text box and excludes what was entered in the second text box
Near	Finds all records in which the word or phrase entered in the second text box occurs within 80 characters either before or after the word or phrase entered in the first text box. The user may change the number of characters by entering the number desired in the text box in the "Range of Proximity Operators" section of the search form.
Followed By	Finds all records in which the word or phrase entered in the second text box follows within 10 to 80 characters of the word or phrase entered in the first text box. The user may change the number of characters by entering the number desired in the text box in the "Range of Proximity Operators" section of the search form.