Searching the CamdenBase

CamdenBase provides two basic search options: boolean search and phrase search.   Generally one should use the boolean search option for most searching since all fields in the bibliographic record are searched. The phrase search option is useful if you want to search only a specific field in the bibliographic record (e.g. title, date, or author).  Search results are ordered by date starting with the most recent.

Boolean searching:

Any term or phrase can by typed into the "search expression" box.   The standard boolean operators "and" and "or" should be used when you want to develop a boolean expression.  Multiple terms are assumed to be a phrase unless they are separated by one of the boolean operators. The asterisk should be used for stemming or truncation.  Any search can be restricted to a specific topic by selecting one of the topics from the "primary theme" picklist.  See also examples.

Examples:

Search Expression	Results
camden mayor	finds all records in which the phrase "camden mayor" appears.   The search engine also does a default truncation so this search will find the phrase "camden mayoral"
"camden mayor"	finds all records in which the phrase "camden mayor" occurs.
camden and mayor	finds all record in which the terms "camden" and "mayor" occur.
camden and mayor and finan*	finds all records with in which the terms "camden" and "mayor" and any word whose stem is "finan" (e.g. financial, finance, etc)
camden and mayor or finan*	finds all records that have either the terms "mayor" and "camden" or any term whose stem is "finan"

Phrase searching:

Using the phrase searching option, one can search for a phrase or term in the title, author, or date field.  Note that boolean operations are not supported in this option.  See also examples.

Search Expression	Results
title phrase = crazy town	finds all records with the phrase "crazy town" in the title
publication year = 1995	finds all records with publication year 1995.
title phrase = cancer, publication year = 1992, primary theme = Cooper Hospital	finds all records with the term "cancer" in the title which were published in 1992 and have a primary theme "Cooper Hospital".
title phrase = mayor and council	finds all records in which the phrase "mayor and council" occurs in title.  Note that this will not do a boolean "and" since phrase searching does not support boolean.

Browsing CamdenBase

In either the boolean or phrase searching option, it is sometimes convenient to just select one of the primary themes and browse through the resulting records.  So, for example, one could select "Camden Redevelopment Agency" and see all the records that have been indexed under that topic.  Note that the boolean option will generally give you more records than the phrase searching option since the boolean option will search the entire record for the selected subject.

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