Search Tips

The search form is a simple tool that lets you search for descriptive information and metadata, such as titles, author/creator names, subject keywords, or the text content of books and other documents, where available. Search terms are not case or accent-sensitive: "Français" and "francais" will produce the same result.

The following features can be used within the search box to refine the results:

Wildcards: ? and *

Use ? in the middle or at the end of a word to match any one character. Use * to match any number of characters (including zero).

• For example, to find either defence or defense: defen?e
• To find either labour or labor: labo*r

Phrases: ""

To search for an exact phrase, enclose all of the words in double quotes. You cannot use wildcards within a phrase.

• For example, to find documents that contain the phrase quebec city and not just the individual terms quebec and city: "quebec city"

Excluded terms: -

Use - in front of a word or phrase to indicate that the term must not appear in the record.

• For example, to find documents that contain paris but not france: paris -france

Alternate terms: |

To match any one of a number of alternative terms, put a | between them.

• For example, to find "ontario" and either "york" or "toronto": ontario york | toronto

Field search: ti:, au:, su:

Use ti: in front of a word or phrase to search only document titles. Use au: and su: to do the same for author/creator names and subject headings/keywords.

• For example: to find documents that contain vancouver in the title: ti:vancouver