Try these strategies to help find materials!

Spell check (Fuzzy search)

Use a tilde (“~”) at the end of each word you want to spell check

Hint: It’s usually at the left of the “1” key on a computer keyboard

• exept~ searches for except, exempt
• lessin~ searches for less, lesson, listen

Wild card characters:

Question mark (?)

Stands in for 1 character

• b?t searches for bat, bet, bit, but
• b?at searches for beat, boat, brat

Asterisk (*)

Stands in for 0 or more characters

• b*t searches for bat, bait, bet, beat, bit, bout, but, bunt, built, etc.
• c*at searches for cat, cheat, cleat, coat, etc.
• det* searches for detect, detective, determine, detest, etc.
• *fect seaches for affect, defect, effect, infect, perfect, etc.

Phrases

Use quotation marks (“” “”) at each end of a phrase for an exact match

• “Sesame Street” searches for titles with the exact phrase, Sesame Street
• “National Geographic” shows titles with that exact phrase
• “Junior Library Guild”