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Searching the Catalogue

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

How to Search

The search system is very simple to use. Just follow these steps.
(If you want to use the advanced search read the advanced instructions below).

1. Click "Catalogue" at the top of this or any other web page on this site to get to the main catalogue search page.
2. Select an appropriate category under "Where to Search".
3. Enter one or more words or part words in the search text box.
   Case is not significant in the search, so you may use upper or lower case.
4. Click the "Search" button.

The search will select and display entries from any part of the catalogue (including both manuscripts and books) that contain all the requested words in any order in the selected field (title, author, imprint or keyword). The search will match the entered words against whole words or part words so, for example, a search for men will match any sequence of those 3 characters including words such as "men", "women", "element", "government" and "mental". As another example, searching for cork will match "cork", "Cork", and "Corke".

The matched words will be highlighted in red wherever they have been found in the catalogue entries displayed by the search.

The results will be displayed to you 10 catalogue entries at a time. To see the next page of results click the "Next" button at the top or the bottom of the page. To return to a previous page of results click the "Previous" button.

When the search results are displayed to you the authors and the imprint descriptions will be clickable links that you can use to find other catalogue entries by the same author or with the same imprint description.

If you want to use logical combinations of search terms, or you want to restrict your search to just manuscripts or just books, then use the advanced search.

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Quick Reference

Case:

The search is case insensitive. More...

Whole word search:

The search will always match partial words. It does not look for whole words. More...

Wildcards:

* will match any number of characters (including none).
? will match exactly one character. More...

Accents:

Where appropriate, accented characters must be given in the search terms (or use ?). More...

Phrases:

Double quotation marks (") delimit a phrase to be searched for. More...

Logical combination:

The simple search always assumes a logical AND between words and phrases.
The advanced search supports logical OR. More...

Books and manuscripts:

The simple search always searches both collections.
The advanced search allows selection between them. More...

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Upper and lower case

The search does not differentiate between upper and lower case. Entering the search text in upper or lower case will make no difference to the results of the search.

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Searching for combinations of words

If you search for a single word or part word then the results will include all catalogue entries containing that sequence of characters in the selected field (title, author, imprint or keyword).

To search for entries that contain all of a set of words just enter the words in the search box. The search assumes a logical AND operation between separate words in the text to search for and will return all entries that contain all the specified words (or part words) in any field in any order.

For example, to search for catalogue entries that mention both Dublin and Cork enter dublin cork or cork dublin in the search box.

To search for words in a particular order see Searching for phrases, and for more complex searching use the advanced search.

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Searching for phrases

You can search for a phrase by enclosing it in double quotation marks ("). For example, you can find all occurrences of the phrase Government of Ireland by entering "government of ireland" (including the quotation marks) as the text to search for. Without the quotation marks the search would find all catalogue entries that contain the three words government, of and ireland in any order and not necessarily together.

You can enter more than one phrase and you can mix phrases and single words. For example, you can enter "government of ireland" history to find all entries that contain the phrase Government of Ireland and the word history in any order.

Wildcard characters may be used in phrases just as they may be used in single words. See Wildcards below.

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Wildcards in the search words

You can use an asterisk (*) to match any number (including zero) of unknown characters in a search, and you can use a question mark (?) to match exactly one unknown character. These two wildcard characters may be mixed in the same search, and may be used as many times as required in the same search.

For example, searching for jon*an will find catalogue entries that contain jonathan in the selected catalogue field, but it will also find any entries that contain in the selected field the letters jon followed by any number of characters (including spaces and punctuation) followed by the letters an (such as a catalogue entry containing the text "..Jonas... and Joannes..."). The * wildcard character should be used with care as it frequently results in so many matching catalogue entries that the required information is obscured.

The single-character wildcard (?) tends to be more useful. It can be used where the number of characters expected is known but the character itself is not known or may be one of a number of possibilities. As a very simple illustration, searching for fa?e will return all entries that contain (in the selected field) words such as fate, faber, fare, preface and profane. More than one ? character may be used together. For example, a search for sw??t will find all catalogue entries with occurrences of the word swift in the selected field, although it will also find occurrences of words such as sweet, swarthmore, and wordsworth.

? is particularly useful when it is not known whether a character has an accent or not, or what the accent should be. For example, a search for m?dailles will find occurences of medailles and médailles.

Searching for just the single character ? (a single question mark) will return all the entries in the catalogue that have at least one character in the selected field (title, author, imprint or keyword). This occurs because the question mark will match any character and therefore it will be matched in every catalogue entry.

The only other character, in addition to the two wildcard characters (* and ?), that is treated specially in the search is the double quotation mark (") which is used to delimit phrases to be searched for (see Searching for phrases. All other characters are searched for as normal.

[Note: In this version of the search software searches that use the wildcard characters or that contain certain other characters will not have the search terms correctly highlighted in the displayed result. The characters that will have this effect include $ (dollar) and . (dot). In addition, the character \ (back slash) may cause an error if it is included in the text to search for]

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Accented characters in the search words

Accents must be included where appropriate in the text to search for. The search system will not match an unaccented character with an accented one (or vice versa). For example, you must search for bouhéreau rather than bouhereau to find references to Elias Bouhéreau, the first librarian of Marsh's Library. If you are not certain whether a word requires an accent or not, or you suspect that the word may appear in the catalogue with and without an accent, try using the single-character wildcard ? instead of the character whose accent is uncertain. For example, to find references to Elias Bouhéreau with and without the accent on the e you could search for bouh?reau.

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Advanced Search

The advanced search allows you to combine search terms using logical AND and OR, and to control some details of how the search is carried out. To get to the advanced search click on "Advanced Search" on the standard (simple) search page.

The search is carried out with the same facilities and restrictions on words, accents, phrases, upper and lower case and wildcards as described in the other sections of this page, but with the following extra facilities available:

• You can search for two terms and logically combine them to give a single result.
  • The categories selected can be the same if required. Searching the same category and using AND to combine them is exactly the same as using the simple search.
  • Either of the search terms may be empty if they are not required.
• You can restrict your search to books only, manuscripts only, or either.

You can return to the simple search at any time by clicking on "Simple Search" or by clicking on "Catalogue" at the top of any web page on this site.

Help on searching:  Simple | Advanced | Quick Reference | Case | Words | Phrases | Wildcards | Accents | Hints

Hints for more effective searching

A number of techniques can be used to ensure that you find all catalogue entries that are relevant to your area of interest. The objective is to ensure that all relevant entries are retrieved, while not obscuring them by also retrieving many irrelevant entries.

• Before starting your search give a moment's thought to identifying words (or part words) that are likely to be unique to the information in which you are interested.
• On your initial searches do not be too specific in your search terms. Give just enough of the word to make it unlikely to match parts of other words.
• Omit word endings to ensure that all variants of a word will be matched. For example, search for religio rather than the more specific religion or religious.
• Omit (or use wildcards instead of) parts of a word that are likely to have a number of spelling variations. This particularly applies to accented characters (see above). For example, search for pr?face rather than preface or préface.
• If your initial searches provide too many catalogue entries, introduce more words into the search terms in order to prevent irrelevant entries matching your search.
• When you find one entry that is relevant, use it to identify further words that might be unique to other relevant entries.
• When you find an entry of interest keep a note of the search terms you used to find it. It is very common and very frustrating to be unable to get back to a catalogue entry that you found previously.

Visiting the Library

The Library is open to the public. For details of the Library's location and opening hours look at the Contact page.

Contacting the Library

If you have queries or comments about the Library, its collections or this web site you can contact the Library staff by phone, fax, post or email.