Learning Resource Center Tour

Step Four: BARRCat and Boolean Operators

You will find BARRCat terminals in the Library. BARRCat is an electronic, integrated public access catalog operating under a system called Library.Solution. Using this computer, you can find the holdings of our Library in addition to the Sherman Public Library and Denison Public Library. Books and audiovisual materials are listed in BARRCat. You can access our BARRCat from home at http://209.151.106.15/. If you need to see if Austin College owns a book, their catalog is available on the Internet at http://www.austinc.edu.

"Integrated" means that as soon as a book is checked out to a person at the circulation desk, the BARRCat will indicate that the book is not presently available. As soon as a cataloger assigns a call number to a new book, that call number will appear on the BARRCat.

When you search BARRCat, you have many options. Most importantly, you must read the screens. For easiest searching, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the "Search: Refine Searching to Obtain More Precise Results" image.
  2. Click on the arrow to the right of the word "title". Choose between Title, Aauthor, Subject, Notes, or various Combinations.
  3. Click on the arrow to the right of "Begin with" to choose between "Begin With" and "Contain". When searching for an Author or Title, you will usually have better results if you choose "Begin with". If you are searching for a book by a specific author, type the author's last name, then, first name.
  4. Type your search term in the text box.

"Beginning With" searches are usually faster than "Containing" searches. A search conducted in the "Containing" mode will look for the words you type in anywhere in the title, subject, author, or notes fields (according to which ones you have marked).

Boolean Operators

Boolean searches may also be conducted in the "Containing search." Boolean operators are not FBI agents, but words that will help you formulate your searches. Boolean operators are important to understand as they can be used on many of the electronic search tools in the library, and will produce improved search results if used correctly. Boolean searches can either increase or reduce the number of matches the system finds for your search request.

The Boolean operator "and" is used to narrow a search. If you enter "education" and receive too many hits, you can narrow your search by using another term such as "primary" and connecting the two terms with an "and".

education and primary or, using BARRCat symbols,
education & primary

.
This will retrieve all items that have both keywords present.

The following diagram illustrates the search blue and yellow. Only the records with both blue and yellow, the middle portion of the diagram, are selected. Use and to narrow your search.

Another way to narrow your search is to use the logical operator, "not".

cow not mad, or using BARRCat symbols,
cow~mad


This search would produce a list of records that included the keyword, "cow", but any records containing the keyword "mad" would not be included in the results.

The diagram below illustrates the search blue not yellow. Only the records with blue and no yellow are selected. Use not to narrow your search results, but exercise caution when using this operator in order to avoid narrowing your results to an extreme.

The Boolean operator "or" is used to broaden a search.
"Education or primary or, using BARRCat symbols,
education | primary will retrieve all items with either word present.

This is expressed as 'blue or yellow' in a search.

When using or in this search expression, results retrieved will contain either blue information, or yellow information, or blue and yellow information together. In the diagram the documents retrieved by using this search expression are contained within all the color areas.

Proceed to Step Five: Time for a Break.

Updated 28 August 2003.

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