Princeton University Library Catalog

Search Tips

  • Keyword searching
    Combine keywords and attributes to find specific items.
    Examples:
    • morrison beloved
    • Egypt foreign relations
  • Phrase searching
    Use quotation marks to search as a phrase.
    Examples:
    • "free market"
    • "mourning becomes electra"
  • Requiring words and phrases
    Use "+" before a term to make it required. (Otherwise results matching only some of your terms may be included).
    Example:
    • +cuba +politics
  • Excluding words or phrases
    Use "-" before a word or phrase to exclude it.
    Example:
    • jaguar -car -automobiles
  • Joining queries
    Use "OR", "AND", and "NOT" to create complex boolean logic. You can use parentheses in your complex expressions. Use the Advanced Search to join across multiple fields.
    Example:
    • paul AND auster
  • Truncation and wildcards
    English terms are automatically stemmed to include plural and singular forms, as well as common suffix and tense variations. An asterisk may also be used to truncate any term from either the beginning or end of the word.