RSSSearching the Carmen catalogue
General search principles
- You do not need to use capital letters
- You do not need to use diacritical marks
Before starting your search, we recommend you first select in which department or for which type of item you wish to search (i.e. “books only,” “in the music department,” etc.).
Enter your search terms into the search box and mark the type of data you are entering (Author/Title/Subject). You can also enter a combination of conditions into the input field. When you begin to type in the search conditions, the catalogue will automatically predict possible terms that you may be searching for.
The All option below the search box allows you to search in all fields (such as publisher, place of publication, year of publication, etc.).
If you do not know the author’s exact name, you can use the author index from the on-line catalogue menu at the top of the page, where search terms are listed in alphabetical order. The subject index includes subject headings as well as keywords.
When you click the Search button, the catalogue will select all of the records that correspond to the conditions you have submitted. Records are listed in order of the relevance of the results to the search query, i.e. records that most closely relate to the search values are displayed at the top of the list. Search results may be sorted by author, whole title, date of publication, etc.
If the search yields a large number of records, you can refine your search results using the filters in the right-hand column of the on-line catalogue. The catalogue will sort the records according to certain entry types (author, document type, keywords, year of publication, etc.), and will display the number of corresponding records. You can refine your search by selecting a specific author’s name or another search term. The selected filters refining the results of your search are displayed in the upper right section above the listing of all of the available search filters.
Clicking an underlined title in the search results will open the full record of the item, see the chapter Have you already selected a specific record?
You can return from the full item record to the list of search results by clicking the Back button in your browser.
Clicking an underlined title in the search results will open the full record of the item, see the chapter Have you already selected a specific record?
The full record of the item you have selected offers convenient navigation options that allow you to return to the search results summary or to the on-line catalogue homepage. You can also return to the list of search results by clicking the Back button in your browser.
Examples
Example: I am searching for all of the books written by Tom Robbins. However, I am not sure if his first name actually is “Tom.” I mark the Author option, and enter the surname “Robbins” into the search box. The catalogue will display all of the records that have the entry “Robbins” in the Author field. I can specify the author’s name by using the search results refine search option in the right-hand side column of the catalogue, where all of the selected records are sorted. In the refine search option for authors, I search for the exact name, i.e. “Robbins, Tom 1936–” and I mark this choice.
Example: I am looking for a book titled Jitterbug Perfume, but I do not know the exact title of the book or the author’s name. I mark the Title option, and enter only part of the title, “Perfume” into the search box. The catalogue with display all documents whose titles contain the information I entered, i.e. “perfume.” If there are only a small number of records that correspond to the information I have entered, I can find the record easily in the list of search results. If the search yields a large number of records, I can narrow the search results using the refine results option in the right-hand column of the on-line catalogue. If I have remembered the name of the author, I can select “Robbins, Tom, 1936–.” Or I can refine the search results using a different parameter, for instance, I can mark “book” and “American prose.”
Example: I like the music group Orbital, which is categorised in the musical genre “ambient.” I would like to search for all albums of a similar musical genre. I mark the Subject option, and enter the word “ambient” into the input field, and the catalogue will display all of the corresponding records. I can narrow down the number of records by using the refine search options in the right-hand side column of the on-line catalogue by marking the category “A/V media.” The selection can be narrowed down further by marking the specific artist or musical group name.
Example: I am looking for detective novels. I mark the Subject option, and enter the words “detective novel” into the search box, and the catalogue will display all of the corresponding records. I can narrow down my query by refining my search to “detective novels” and “adult fiction.” The selection can be narrowed down further by, for instance, marking a specific author.
Example: I am looking for a book by Tom Robbins that was published in 2005 by Argo. I will mark the option “All” and will enter the search conditions “Tom Robbins 2005 Argo” into the search box. The catalogue will select records corresponding to the submitted conditions. The chain of submitted search conditions is displayed below the search box.