Performing Advanced Searches in Primo VE
The Advanced Search page allows you to specify additional lines of criteria, which are not available with the Simple Search (see Performing Basic Searches). In addition, it allows you to specify filters prior to executing the query.
The Advanced Search page contains the following components and options:
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Search for – Search profile slots allow you to search within a specific category of materials (such as materials that belong to your institution, course reserves, or any additional repositories that are supported by the library. You can also limit your search results by specifying filters.
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Search Profile – If a search profile slot includes more than one search profile, you can narrow your search results further by specifying subcategories that may further limit the scope of searches to a campus, library, or additional search indexes (such as Primo Central).
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Add a New Line – Advanced searches allow you to include a maximum of seven search criteria lines, which contain the following parameters: operator, field selector, search type, and search box.
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Field selector – For each search line, this parameter allows you to narrow the search to all search fields or a particular field (such as title and subject).
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Search type – For each search line, this parameter indicates how your search terms are compared against the search field. The following values are valid:
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is (exact) – Returns results that contain phrases that exactly match the phrases specified in the query.
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contains – Returns results that contain all words in the phrase, but the words may be in a different order and may not be as close together.
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starts with – Returns results that contain words that start with the specified string. This type performs left-anchored title searches only.
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Operators – As with basic searches, you can include the following operators between words and phrases in each search line: AND, OR, and NOT. In addition, the Operator drop-down list allows you to select the operation that is used between search lines. For more information on operator precedence, see Precedence Rules.
If your query includes operators that separate phrases in which one or both of the phrases contain multiple words, Primo will use parentheses to group the words in each multiple-word phrase. For example, Primo will convert the query Donald Duck OR Disney to (Donald Duck) OR Disney to distinguish it from the following query: Donald (Duck OR Disney).
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Search box – For each search line, enter the search query text, which may include words, phrases, and operators (AND, OR, and NOT).
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Filters – Filters allow you to narrow your results to specific metadata (such as a material type or date range). In the search results, you can include and exclude facets to filter your results further.
In the following example, matching records must contain either the words Donald and Duck or the words Mickey and Mouse in the title, and the subject of the records must not have the exact phrase Amusement Parks. From the matching records, only the English articles are displayed in the results.
Performing Broad Searches with a Wildcard
As with basic searches, you can include the following wildcard characters within search terms to broaden your search results:
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? – enter a question mark to perform a single character wildcard search. For example, type wom?n to search for records that contain the strings woman, women, and so forth.
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* – enter an asterisk to perform a multiple character wildcard search. For example, type cultur* to search for records that contain strings, such as culture, cultural, and culturally.
In addition, the Advanced Search allows you to perform a search that returns all records for one or more selected pre-filters (such as Material Type and Language). To perform this type of search, enclose the * wildcard in quotes and select at least one pre-filter. For example:
