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Education - Library Guide

WorldCat Discovery - The CUE Library Catalogue

WorldCat Discovery is the CUE Library catalogue interface.

Visit the Books & ebooks section of this guide to see tutorials on

Learn how to use WorldCat even more effectively with these tutorials from OCLC, the creators of WorldCat.

** Sometimes the videos differ slightly from how CUE Library has set up our catalogue. The intended audience for these videos is library staff, and some information may not apply to your own use of WorldCat. Ask Us for help and clarification.**

Worldcat - Index Labels

Note: If you use an index label for one search term in the box, you must use index labels for all search terms. Otherwise those without labels will be treated as a keyword.  

Notice the punctuation for each label.

  • Using a colon (:) makes it a word search, so all of the words you use will result in a hit, but they will be found anywhere they appear as individual words, not all together as a phrase. 
  • Using an equals sign (=)  creates a phrase search, which requires the words to be in that exact order to result in a hit.
  • Instead of using the equals sign phrase option, you can instead put quotation marks around the phrase, for example su:"mental health".
  • Learn about Keyword vs. Subject Searches to help you decide when to use those index labels.

For a complete list of index labels in Worldcat, along with examples, visit Index labels and examples of an expert search in WorldCat

Some commonly used index labels are listed below.

Author (word) au: a:O'Shea The name could be a last name or a first name.
Author (phrase) au= au=O'Shea, Mark Specifies the last name, then the first name.
Keyword (word) kw: kw: autism The results must have this word in one of the following categories - publication year, ISBN, geographic codes, map data, and all the information found in the author, title, notes, and subject indexes
Keyword (phrase) kw= kw= mental health The results must have these words in this exact order in one of the following categories - publication year, ISBN, geographic codes, map data, and all the information found in the author, title, notes, and subject indexes
Publisher (word) pb: pb: Chicago This word must appear in the publisher's name, however, other words might also appear there too.
Publisher (phrase pb= pb= University of Chicago Press Searches for the complete phrase, meaning those words must be in that exact order.
Series Title (word) se: se: Goodminds Results must have that word in the series name.
Series Title (phrase) se= se: I Can Read Results must have these words in that exact order in the series name.
Title (word) ti: ti: herpetology Results must have that word in the title.
Title (phrase) ti= ti= Book of Snakes Returns items with the complete phrase, meaning those words must be in that exact order. Omit any initial articles like the words a, an, or the at the start of the title.
Year yr= yr=2018 Results must be published in that year.

 

Adapted from: Using Shortcuts - Expert Searching Scarborough Library, Shepherd University