How to Search in EMu

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators can be used when searching within a field:

AND

If two terms are entered on the same line in a field, the Boolean operator and applies, e.g. collector [and] author

Records that contain all words specified in a search, anywhere in the field, are found. Words do not have to be adjacent within the field to match this search.

OR

If two terms are entered on different lines in a field, the Boolean operator or applies, e.g. collector [or] author

Records that contain one term or both are found.

NOT

If an exclamation mark (!) is entered before the search term, the Boolean operator not applies, e.g. [not] !collector

All records not containing the term in the field are found.

Text Retrieval

How to find a phrase

A phrase is one or more words adjacent to each other. To find records using a phrase search, type the search terms within quotation marks in the search field, e.g. "Species of Eastern Brazil".

Note: Noise words (like, a, the, or, and) are generally ignored.

How to use stemming

Stemming allows you to find records that contain variations of the word entered (i.e. its plural, adjective, verb version, etc.)

To run a stem search, type a ~ (tilde) directly before the search term, e.g..~river will find records containing both river and rivers.

How to use phonetic retrival

Phonetic retrieval allows you to find records that contain terms that sound like the search term. This is useful when the exact spelling of the term or name is unknown.

To perform a phonetic retrieval type the @ symbol before the search term, e.g. @smith will find records containing smythe, smithe and smith.

Pattern Matching

Any term that contains one or more of the wildcard characters
( ^ $ * ? ) is considered a pattern.

The pattern matching rules are:

^ The matching term must be at the start of the field
$ The matching term must be at the end of the field
This matches any number of characters at that position in the term
? This matches any single character at that position in the term

Any other letters must appear at the appropriate position in the matching term.

To find records that match a pattern, type the search term in the field, using the wildcard characters in the correct position in the word, e.g. the query r?n matches run and ran, but not ruin, r*n matches run, ran and ruin.

Range Queries

You can search for a range in a numeric, date or time field.

To find records within a range, type a relational operator before the search term in the search field, e.g. >=30, <26/01/1988.

You can specify more than one range in a query, thus closed ranges can be supported, e.g. >=30 <=50.

See How to Search for a Date Range

Proximity Searching

On text fields, you can search for words within close proximity of each other. Proximity searches take the form of:

'(term1 term2 ...) modifier operator number unit'

To perform a proximity search:

Type two search terms in a field, e.g. river bank
Enclose the two terms within brackets, e.g. (river bank)
If required, type a modifier, e.g. after, near. The modifier is either after, meaning ordered search, or near, meaning unordered (this is the default).
Type a relational operator (i.e. <, <=, >, >=, =, <>) and a number or range to indicate the proximity or proximity range of each term to the other, e.g. (river bank) <= 5
Type the unit of proximity by which to search, e.g. word, sentence or paragraph, e.g. (river bank) <= 5 words will find records where the search terms river and bank are equal to or less than five words apart.
Surround the search phrase with single quotes, e.g. '(river bank) <= 5 words'

The unit of proximity can be abbreviated to the first letter of the word, e.g. w for word, s for sentence, p for paragraph.