Information Search UDSM Library

Search Techniques Information search techniques largely dependent on how information is structured and how the search tools work Commonly used techniques  Basic searching  Advanced searching  (Key) Word searching  Subject searching  Truncation  Boolean Searching etc.

Search Techniques Importance of search techniques  Search techniques help to broaden or narrow search  One can search for information in many different ways  They help in finding a larger amount of relevant information  They provide convenient ways of searching for information (e.g. by title, subject etc.)

Keyword searching (Key) Word searching retrieves a word or phrase in any field in a record. If you typed this term: Distance education in developing countries in a database, it would searcher for all the term and the following records might be retrieved:  Distance  education  Distance education  Developing  Developing countries  Higher education in developing countries  Distance education in developing countries etc…

Phrase searching This is used to retrieve a string of words (instead of a single word). For the database to understand your search, you should put your phrase between brackets ( ) or inverted commas ". E.g. “Distance education in developing countries”

Field searching Subject searches are limited to the subject field of the record. They retrieve readings that describe a topic and put together records by using a common terms. Headings are often too broad and vary from one database to another.  E.g. Distance education (Try this in the library OPAC –

Truncation Truncation searching allows you to retrieve documents containing variations on a search term. To execute a truncation search, type the first few letters (stem) of the keyword followed by an asterisk (*) or a Dollar ($) sign. E.g. education soc* Education* etc (try all these in

Broaden or Narrow Search To broaden search Use Boolean operator OR e.g. higher education OR developing countries Look for alternative terms Use more general search terms Use truncations to get variations of terms Use (key) word searching

Broaden or Narrow Search To Narrow Search Use Boolean operator AND E.g. Distance education AND Tanzania

Broaden or Narrow Search Use Boolean operator and NOT E.g. Distance education and NOT Tanzania Look for more specific alternative terms Use subject headings as search terms Use subject field Use more precise terms Remove any truncation

Broaden or Narrow Search - Summary

Summary In this lesson you were able to: know how to apply various techniques to find information apply the following searching tools  Boolean logic  truncation  phrase searching Narrow and Broaden Search