Alphabetical Searching

Alphabetical searches show a list of all the records at your library in alphabetical order. If your main library branch shares items with other branches, an alphabetical search shows a list of items from all branches.

An alphabetical search is useful for finding a title or authority record that begins with a certain word. It can also help you find records that are difficult to locate using a keyword search because of the large number of matches a keyword search can generate.

You can enter all or the first part of a search term. (For example, enter “mar” or “marriage”.) During an alphabetical search, the system ignores initial articles such as “a,” “an,” and “the.” If you are searching for a heading that begins with an article, it is not necessary to enter the article. (For example, if you are searching for the series A Touchstone Book, enter “Touchstone Book”.)

When you do an alphabetical search, Horizon displays a browse list of records that match your search. The selector arrow points to the title that most closely matches the spelling of your search term.

If you have restricted your search, Horizon displays items that do not fit the restriction in gray. (For information, see Restricting a Search.)

The types of alphabetical searches you can do depend on the search indexes that your system administrator sets up.

These are the two main types of alphabetical searches you can do:

Title. Lets you browse an alphabetical list of titles (bib records) in your library.
Authority. Lets you browse an alphabetical list of authority records in your library. Some common authority records include author, subject, and series.

To do an alphabetical search

1 Press F2 to access the Main Search window.
2 Choose an alphabetical search option.
3 Enter all or the first part of your search term in the Search for field.
4 Click OK.

Horizon displays a browse list of alphabetical headings. The selector arrow points to the item that most closely matches your search term.

5 Do one of these options:
If you can see the heading you want, choose the heading.
If you cannot see the heading you want, scroll until you find the heading you want, then choose it.
If the heading you want is elsewhere in the list and you do not want to scroll to that point, do these steps:
a Delete the heading in the Your Search field.
b Enter a new heading.
c Press ENTER.
d Choose the heading you want.
6 Click Show Titles.

Horizon displays a list of titles that contain the selected heading. If only one title contains that heading, Horizon displays the Bibliographic Detail window.

Restrictions may block some of the titles for a heading from being displayed. A message alerts you of this. Choose File, Restrict to remove the restriction parameters and view all titles.

7 Move through the search windows to find the information you need. (For instructions, see Searching Paths.)

 


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