Boolean operator AND
You don’t need to use the Boolean operator AND. Because of the smart SOLR technology, if you search for multiple terms without using quotation marks, your terms will be searched as though they have an implicit Boolean operator AND between them. This means that each term typed must appear somewhere in the results records.
If you were to type flavor taste in a search box, each result would have both words in it. Consequently, you would get fewer results than had you searched either one of the terms on its own, so don’t use this method if you would like to see results which contain either term.
The most effective way to combine search terms in the IFIS Collections platform is to use the Add term function and Update your results, as shown in the two simple steps outlined below:
Step 1: Enter your first search term and ‘Update’.
Step 2. Choose 'Add term' and enter your second term, then click 'Update'.
Boolean operator OR
You can use Boolean operator OR only if you are working in a single search box.
This can be a great way to broaden your search. The Boolean OR operator captures potential synonyms for search concepts. Typing flavor OR taste in a search returns more results than a search for either word alone. Each of the results will contain a version of flavor, a version of taste, or a version of both words in the records.
Note that if you search a phrase connected by OR to another term, you will want to be sure to put the phrase inside quotation marks; otherwise, each word typed will be searched individually. For instance, if you search branched chain amino acids OR BCAA, you will get an enormous number of results, some of which include only the term acid, or only the term chain, etc., while if you search “branched chain amino acids” OR BCAA, each result will have either the full phrase or the abbreviation or both.
You must capitalize the OR for it to be read as a Boolean operator.
Boolean operator NOT
You can use the Boolean operator NOT only if you are working in a single search box. You can narrow a search by removing any results containing a specific term by typing a Boolean NOT operator. Typing tomato NOT green will return results that have the word tomato (or tomatoes) in them somewhere unless they also have the word green in them.
However, NOT should never be the first method you use to narrow a search. The term you are eliminating might be used in a record in a way you do not expect. For instance, relevant research about tomatoes could be written by an author named Green. You would not know this if you blocked all results containing the word green. Similarly, brown NOT browning would eliminate any results that contained brown(s) if browning also appeared in them. Other narrowing techniques - adding more terms to your search to make it more specific or using filtering options - are usually safer approaches.
You must capitalize the NOT for it to be read as a Boolean operator.