Avanti MicroLCS provides simple but powerful OPAC search capabilities that can do basic keyword searching all the way up to full Boolean searching across multiple fields with nesting. The search interface consists of a single one line input field for both basic and complex searches. Unlike many OPACS there is no basic/advanced user dichotomy. "Basic" and "advanced" are relative concepts that exist on a continuum so MicroLCS makes no distinction. The power lies in a simple and easy to learn search syntax.

Searching begins by selecting an index to search in the drop-down list, entering a keyword or keywords followed by clicking on the Find button (or the Enter key on the keyboard). The client will send your search to the server which evaluates the search expression and returns any results. If there there is more than one result they will be displayed as a brief title listing.

Each entry in the list is a clickable link. Click on an entry and the full title and holdings information for that title is displayed.

If a search results in only a single title the full title record for that title is displayed.

Note that during search activity the search expression entered remains in the search textfield. This makes it easy for you to modify a search expression, adding or removing keywords as you go to modify a search.

Bookmarks

Individual titles in search results can be bookmarked. Bookmarks are a way of building up a list of interesting titles during a search session. To add a title to the Bookmarks list just click the checkbox for that title. To view titles in the bookmarks list click on the Bookmarks button in the control panel. To remove a title from the Bookmarks list simply uncheck that title from the list. The bookmarks list will remain with you throughout the search session until the Clear button is clicked or the session times out, usually after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Basic keyword searching is simple. Just select the index to search on from the dropdown list, enter one or more keywords separated by spaces in the search input field and click the Find button. Multiple keywords are automatically ANDed together, so the more keywords you enter the narrower and more refined the search results will be. So for example, selecting the subject index and entering

 
dogs

in the search like and clicking Find returns all titles about dogs. Entering

 
dogs cats

in the search line returns all titles about dogs AND cats. All searches in MicroLCS are case insensitive, so entering

 
dogs cats

returns the same results as

 
Dogs Cats

Order is unimportant in basic keyword searching. Since all keywords are ANDed together multiple keywords can be entered in any order with the same results.

There is no limit to the number of keywords you can enter in a search.

As pointed out earlier basic keyword searching is a form of Boolean searching with an implied AND between keywords. MicroLCS provides full and unrestricted Boolean keyword searching using a simple search syntax. Boolean search expressions consist of keywords and Boolean operators on those keywords. MicroLCS supports the three basic Boolean operators: AND, OR and NOT. These are represented in the search syntax by the following symbols:

 
+    AND

^    OR

!    NOT

NOTE: Keywords and operators are always separated by spaces.

For example, a subject search on dogs AND cats is typed as

 
dogs + cats

in the search line. This will return all titles with both the words "dogs" and "cats" appearing in the subject field. Likewise, dogs OR cats is written as

 
dogs ^ cats

which returns all titles with either the word "dogs" OR the word "cats" OR both words in the subject field.

The NOT operator (!) is used to exclude or subtract a keyword or search expression from a search. For example:

 
mammals ! cats

will return all titles with "mammals" but NOT "cats" in the subject field.

MicroLCS is able to search across any and all indexed fields in a search. The previous examples above were all Subject searches. We could specify another indexed field in a search. This is done by typing the new search field label prefixed with a "$". For example, the subject search

 
horse ^ equine + $author Henry

returns all titles that have a subject containing the word horse or equine with an author by the name of Henry Only indexed fields can be used in search expressions. Once a new field is specified in a search expression all keywords that follow are processed against the new field until another field is specified.

We can do quite a few useful things with the basic keyword searching, Boolean searching and cross-index capabilities discussed so far. These are made much more powerful with nested searching. All searches in MicroLCS are evaluated from left to right. With nested searching keywords and Boolean expressions can be grouped to set precedence. A nested searches can be thought of as a "search within a search." To do nested searching enclose the part of the search to nest in curly braces { }. So in this example:

 
mammals ! { cats ^ dogs }

the Boolean expression cats ^ dogs is evaluated first and the results are then NOTed with the keyword "mammals." This search returns all titles containing the word "mammals" but not the words "cats" or "dogs" or both "cats" and "dogs" in the subject field.

This example:

 
mammals + { cats ^ dogs }

returns titles containing the word "mammals" together with "cats" or "dogs." Much different results than

 
mammals + cats ^ dogs

which returns titles containing the words "mammals" and "cats" and all titles about dogs.

Multiple levels of nesting are also possible. For example,

 
mammals + { cats ^ dogs ! { horses + morgan } }

returns all titles about mammals that are cats or dogs or morgan horses. There is no limit to the number of levels of nesting that MicroLCS can handle.

The MicroLCS search tool in extremely flexible, with no built in limit to the number of keywords in a search or the complexity of Boolean and nested searches. If a search expression is syntactically correct, MicroLCS should be able to evaluate it and return the results.