Advanced Search

From MCLS Wiki

See Grand Rapids Public Library Training Documents for a list of all Evergreen training topics.

Advanced Search Overview

The Advanced Search box is more complex than the Simple Search box, but it remains very intuitive. Practicing from outside the library? You can use the Michigan Evergreen catalog at https://demo.michiganevergreen.org It's a little different look, but the same data.

Advanced Search contains multiple search boxes and you can Add Search Rows.
You can clear a previous search with Reset Form.
In each Search Row you can select to search by Keyword (default), Title, Author, Subject, or Series.
You can use the operators Contains (default), Does not contain, or Matches Exactly with your search terms.
You can filter your search by Item Form, Item Type, LiteraryForm, Language, and Audience.

Clicking Advanced for Item Type, LiteraryForm, and Audience offers more filtering options.
Filters have scrolling menus to help you search.
Click+Shift+Click will select and apply multiple adjacent filters.
Shift+Arrow Key will also select multiple adjacent filters.
Ctrl+Click will select and apply multiple non-adjacent filters.

You can limit your search by branch. Inside a library, the default is to search the current branch. You can also search other specific branches or all of the Local Library System. You can also Limit to Available from the start of your search.
You can additionally determine Sort Criteria from the start of your search and Group Formats and Editions for your search results.
Advanced Search is the default search when using the staff client.

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Entering Search Phrases

Keep the following in mind when entering search phrases:

All search terms are joined by and by default. A search for civil war is seen in the system as civil and war.
Boolean operators such as and, or, and not are searched for as words, not as Boolean operators, and are not considered special. Use Contains (default), Does not contain, or Matches Exactly instead.
Phrase searching is possible by using quotation marks: "civil war".
Use phrase searching for exact titles, authors, subjects, or series: "The Secret" or "Shakespeare, William".
To exclude a term from the search, type a space and - (minus). For example, vacations -british will search for materials on vacations, but not Britain.
By default, search terms are stemmed. A search for dogs will also return hits with the word dog.
The search features of Evergreen are forgiving. For example, searching is not case sensitive, you do not need to enter the author's last name first, nor do you need an exact title or subject heading.

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Searching Shortcuts

You can combine the following searching shortcuts in any simple search box to develop a more advanced search:

author: or au:
title: or ti:
keyword: or kw:
series: or se:
subject: or su:

So an advanced search screen that looks like

could appear in a simple search box as

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Grouping Formats and Editions

Group Formats and Editions is a handy feature in advanced searching when patrons need any version of a title.

Evergreen displays the search results by single title groups, regardless of format of edition. For example, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is available as a book, both a widescreen and full screen DVD, and a VHS tape while Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is available as a book, book-on-CD, and widescreen DVD. You can see all the different formats and editions by clicking on the title.
The icons under the title and author indicate the various formats. You can click on one of the icons to see only those formats.
The number of available copies and total copies is displayed in the right-hand columns. Depending on which library you've chosen to search, you may see the results for one branch in comparison to all of GRPL, or just for all of GRPL.

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Quick Search

You can Quick Search by standard numbers

ISBN searches both 10 and 13 digit International Standard Book Numbers.
ISSN searches International Standard Serial Numbers.
Call Number searches our call numbers exactly as they appear. A call number search results in a Shelf Browser page.
LCCN searches the Library of Congress Control Number.
TCN searches the unique Terminal Control Number assigned to each bibliographic record.
Item Barcode searches for a specific item by barcode.