Database design, and information storage and retrieval

ICT for Library and Information Professionals: A Training Package for Developing Countries
Student’s Guide
Module 4: Database Design, and Information Storage and Retrieval: Annex 02
Module 4 - Annex 02
1. TRUNCATION
Truncation allows you to look for a number of words or terms starting with the same
letters.
Search for any words starting either with AGRI
Search expression:
AGRI$
This may be useful to search for authors when the names are inverted as phrases and
when you are not sure about the exact name.
Search expression:
ABEY$
This is useful for searching for classification numbers or accession numbers.
Search expression:
547$ or 199$
2 LOGICAL OPERATORS
2.1. Operator “AND” Used to combine two or more different terms.
Search expression:
Soil * plant
This can be used to search for authors and keywords
Using “and” “or” and ( ) with truncation
Biological aspects of forests including forest plants, trees, etc.
Search expression:
Forest * (plant$ + vegetation + flora + tree$ + biology)
2.2. Operator “OR” used to link all related (synonymous) terms. This will broaden the search.
Search expression:
Education + schools + universities
2.3. Operator “NOT” used to exclude specified terms from a search.
Search expression:
Adult education ^ teaching$
It is possible to use these operators to refer back to previous searches. Each set of
records retrieved through a search is identified by a number preceded by a # mark. If
your search 3 was for “ADULT EDUCATION” and search 4 was for “TEACHING” .
Search expression:
#3 * #4
This will give you all the records with “ADULT EDUCATION” or “TEACHING”
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