Search Help

General Tips

You may use lower- or upper-case letters; case does not matter.
You may use the Boolean operators "AND" (or "&&" or "+"), "OR," "NOT"; "AND" is the default. For example, you could type:
(baseball orioles) OR Baltimore
to retrieve all records having "baseball" and "orioles" in them, or the word "Baltimore."
DO NOT use a Boolean operator as a term in a word search
To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks. For example, you could type:
"Maryland Agricultural College"
to retrieve all records having the phrase "Maryland Agricultural College" as opposed to those that have the words "Maryland," "Agricultural," and "College" anywhere in the record.

Advanced Search Tips

Boolean Operators: and, or, not, & ( )

Use OR to broaden your search. When more than one word is entered into a search box, the terms will be combined as if the word "OR" appeared between them
- Example: search words in title for:
  hardware software
  hardware OR software
  to find all records containing the word "hardware" as well as all the records containing the word "software" in the title
Use AND (or "&&" or "+") to limit your search.
- Example: search words in title for:
  hardware AND software
  hardware && software
  +hardware +software
  to find all records containing BOTH the word "hardware" and the word "software" in the title.
Use NOT to narrow your search.
- Example: search words in title for:
  hardware NOT software
  hardware -software
  to find all records containing the word "hardware" but not if they also include the word "software" in the title. Be careful, you may eliminate records containing the term "hardware" that are of value to your research!
Use ( ) parenthesis to create complex searches. Statements enclosed in parenthesis are performed first by the system. If there are no parenthesis around sets of terms, the system will process first all your and ideas and then the or ideas and then the not ideas.
Examples:
1. Search words in title for:
  (hardware software) OR ("computer equipment")
  The system will first combine all of the catalog records in which the word "hardware" or the word "software" appear in the title. Then the computer will limit that set of records to only those records that include the word "computers" in the title.
2. Search words in title for:
  hardware software OR "computer equipment"
  Since there are no ( ) parenthesis instructing the system which operation to perform first, it will peform the "and" search first. In this case, it will create a set in which EITHER the terms "software" and "computer equipment " appear in the title. Then it will combine that set with records in which the word "hardware" appears in the title.
Examples 1 and 2 are VERY different searches and yield different results!

Advanced Search

A term MUST be entered into the text fields

Use the text fields to type your search terms and choose the area of the record you would like to search in from the drop down boxes
Searches may be targeted to:
- Keywords: any area of the record for an item in the collection
- Title: any main, translated, or alternate title for an item in the collection
- Subject: any subject term used in the record for an item in the collection
- Creator: any person or corporate body listed as a creator for an item in the collection

Additionally, results may be limited by the following:

Collections: Although not all materials in the repository belong to one of these collections, they may be searched individually or in combination
- The available collections are:
  - Archives UM: Findings aids for the rich archive and manuscript collections at the University of Maryland Libraries.
  - Films@UM: Spanning documentaries, public television programming, taped performances and feature films, these nearly 500 videos cover many areas of interest.
  - The Jim Henson Works: 70+ full-length digital videos of Henson's groundbreaking work in TV and film (Available only for viewing only at select UM libraries).
  - A Treasury of World's Fair Art & Architecture: A sampling of artifacts from the rich and varied World's Fair collection at UM.
  - University Album: More than 1300 archival images documenting the University of Maryland's 150+ year history.
Media Type: choose to search for items of the following media types:
- Collections
- Finding Aids
- Moving Images
- Still Images
- Text Documents