Search for Lists

Lists are a way for you to group library-owned items you have found. Lists let you keep track of items of interest and refer back to them whenever you want to. You can create as many lists as you want to, with a total of 250 items per list.

You can search for:

  • Lists you have created
  • Lists that have been created by other users — provided that the creator has set a list's Privacy Setting to Viewable by Anyone (Public).

For additional information about lists, see: Saving Your Results.

Accessing the search for lists option

You access the Search Lists screen by selecting the down arrow to the right of the Search link, then selecting Search for Lists from the drop-down list.

Performing your search

To search for a list:

Step Action For more information see...
1 Enter in the search box any combination of:
  • A complete or partial list name and/or
  • One or more words contained in the list's Description
 Search techniques for lists
2

Select the Search button.

Result: Lists that match your search are displayed.

 
3

Select a list name to see its contents.

  

 

Search techniques for lists

Several techniques are available for searching for WorldCat lists.

Keyword

A keyword search uses one or more complete words that are contained anywhere in the list name or in the list description. You do not have to identify a word as part of the name or part of of the description, and you can enter the words in any order. You can enter upper or lower case.

The more precise your terms, the more specific your results will be.

    Examples:

    This search... Returns...
    Over 2,000 lists
    20 lists
    8 lists*

     

    *New Books lists created by the Kresge Engineering Library of the University of California at Berkeley (initially 8 lists)

Boooean operators

Boolean operators allow you to group, include, or exclude certain terms in your search. You can use these operators:

Operator Returns...

AND

 List names and descriptons containing all of the words entered in the search box.
Note: This is the default for a keyword search.

Example:  is the same as

OR

List names and descriptions containing any of the words entered in the search box.

Examples: 

NOT

List names and descriptions that contain the word that precedes NOT but do not contain the word that follows NOT in the search box.

Examples: 

 

Although Boolean operators are frequently shown in all upper case, use of upper case is not required.

Note: Boolean searching does not support complex searches requiring the use of parentheses, such as ford (gerald NOT henry).

Truncation

Trucation allows you to search for a term and its variations by entering a minimum of the first three letters of the term followed by an asterisk (*).

    Examples:

    bossuet
    boston
    This search... Returns lists whose names
    or descriptions contain...
    bose
    bosland
    bosque
    boss
    bossa

Wildcards

Wildcards are special characters used to represent one or more characters in a search term. They are useful when you are unsure of spelling, when there are alternate spellings, or when you only know part of a term.

When searching lists, you can use the ? (question mark) wildcard. This wildcard represents any number of characters. Include a number if you know the maximum number of characters the wildcard will replace.

    Examples:

    This search... Returns lists whose names
    or descriptions contain...
    woman
    women
    burner
    butler
    butterfield
    butterfly

Invalid search techniques

Some common search techniques cannot be used to search lists:

  Usage...

#

 sm#th (used to represent a single character)

This search produces no results.

+

books + boston (used in place of the Boolean AND operator)

Use this instead: books AND boston.

|

books | movies (used in place of the Boolean OR operator)

Use this instead: books OR movies.

-

movies - hitchcock (used in place of the Boolean NOT operator)

, as:

Use this instead: movies NOT hitchcock.

phrase search

 "boston massacre" (encloses two or more words in quotation marks to search for the exact words in the exact order)

This search produces no results.

 

Other searches

These other searches are available to you:

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