Bayou State Periodical Index
All fields mode | Boolean operators | Browse mode | Citation | Operators | Searching | Truncation

All Fields mode

All Fields mode allows retrieval of citations using any word or combination of words in the database. Note: words of fewer than three characters are not indexed. Dates and numbers (1946, 234, etc.) are indexed. Operators are used to combine words using Boolean logic. The operator AND is assumed. That is, fish ocean is logically equivalent to fish AND ocean.

Browse mode

Browse mode presents an alphabetically arranged list of titles, authors, or subjects. Clicking on a list item displays either a titles list or a citation, depending on the number of hits (title occcurances) attached. To search by Title in Browse mode, type the first few words of the title of an article or book. To find records by Subject, use a heading such as American Literature or War. To search for items by Author, enter a name in any of the following formats: Tom Jones or Jones, Tom or Jones.

Citation

A successful search returns (in Browse mode) a list titles, names or subjects. In All Fields mode a successful search returns a list of titles. In either case you can display the associated citation by clicking on the title, name or subject.

Operators

The operators AND, OR and NOT can (optionally) be used to define complex queries during All Fields mode searches. For example, fish AND salmon will list all records containing both of these terms, while fish NOT salmon will list all records containing fish except those also containing salmon. fish OR salmon will list records containing either term.

Guidelines for searching

Terms can be entered in either upper or lower case. To search by Title, type the first few words of the title of an article or book. To find records by Subject, use a heading such as American Literature or War. To search for items by Author, enter a name in any of the following formats: Tom Jones or Jones, Tom or Jones.

To find records containing particular words or phrases, select All Fields. The Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT can (optionally) be used to define complex queries. For example, fish AND salmon will list all records containing both of these terms, while fish NOT salmon will list all records containing fish except those also containing salmon. fish OR salmon will list records containing either term.

Truncation

The All Fields truncation symbol (* or $) is used as follows: fish* will list all records containing words starting with the root fish, e.g. fishermen, fishing, fishmonger, etc.