Performing a Basic Search

To find a knowledge base (KB) article, enter one or more keywords into the "Search the KB..." box at the top of the page, separate each word with a space, then click "Search" or press Enter / Return.

A good starting point is to use search terms that are both descriptive and specific while making sure terms are spelled correctly and don't include unnecessary punctuation.  If a single-word search returns too many results, try adding additional words one by one to narrow the search.

When searching for the exact match of a multi-word phrase, surround the phrase with quotation marks.  For example, searching for "windows laptop" returns results for articles that explicitly contain the words "windows" & "laptop" next to each other.

To exclude results that contain a particular keyword, simply add a hyphen to the beginning of the word you want to exclude.  For example, searching for laptop -apple will return results with laptop but not apple.

Advanced Search Options

If you still haven't found what you're looking for after performing a basic search, try modifying your search via one or more of the following drop-down lists that appear after performing a basic search.  These drop-down lists allow you to further tailor your search via different search modes & sorting functions.

All Topics

Limit your search to a particular category of article.

• Examples: Library Technology Group (LTG), LWS, Storage

Title + Keywords

Transform the target of your search to focus on elements other than just the title + keywords.

• Examples: full text, attachments

Relevance

Sort or reverse sort your results by one of several different categories.

• Examples: title, updated, view this week, total views

Table Format

Change how your search results are presented in terms of description length or ease of exporting.

• Examples: Standard (i.e., longer descriptions), Table (i.e., shorter descriptions), JSON / XML (i.e., good for exporting)

The Former "Advanced Search" Feature

A previously-available Advanced Search feature of the Libraries KB has been removed as the campus KB administration team works to incorporate its capabilities into an entirely new search paradigm that both improves on those capabilities and enhances the overall search experience.  The Library Technology Group (LTG) is working to incorporate additional options based on user feedback.

Search changes include the following items that used to be part of the former Advanced Search feature:

• Changing the Matching drop-down list from "All Words" to "Any Words" used to locate any articles that had the specific words in the order you typed them.
  
  • This can now be accomplished by either searching for text / phrases with or without quotation marks.
• Searching for keywords, full text, etc. used to be possible without first having to perform a basic search.
  
  • This can now be handled via drop-down lists after performing a basic search.
• Sorting & filtering search results could be set before performing a search.
  
  • This can now be handled via drop-down lists after performing a basic search.