University of Louisville

Title Search

A Title search retrieves materials by title in the exact word order of the search. Use this search when the title of the item is known. If you are unsure of the exact wording of an item's title, try a Keyword search.
To search by title, select the Title option from the search menu. Type the exact title, or the first few words, and click on "Search". Omit punctuation, accent marks, and initial articles. Boolean operators (and, or, not) cannot be used in Title searches.

Results of your search are displayed in a Title List. Search limits are available for date of publication, language, item type, medium, and collection location.

Note: A Title search retrieves items based on information in the title fields of their catalog records. Many items, such as music CDs or anthologies, have a general title but also titles for each individual part, e.g. each music track or essay. These titles are not included in the item's title fields. To search for them, use a Keyword search.

Search Strategies:

  • Always omit initial articles (a, an, the, das, un, el, la, l', etc.) in any language.
  • Always omit initial punctuation in any language (e.g., quotation marks, ¿). Also, omit intervening commas, periods, apostrophes, and most other punctuation (hyphens should be retained).
  • If searching the full title does not produce satisfactory results, enter only the first few words of the title.   You can also enter just the beginning of the last word in your search statement: searches are automatically truncated and retrieve catalog records that begin with the words or phrases you enter. Do not use the question mark (?) for truncation.

    painted ladies (for Painted ladies: women at the court of Charles II)
    ovids meta (for Ovid’s Metamorphoses)  

  • Consider alternate forms of title words:

    initials, acronyms, abbreviations (e.g., epa or environmental protection agency)
    numbers (e.g., 60 or sixty)
    one word or two (e.g., child care or childcare)
    spelling variations (e.g., gray or grey, center or centre)
    similar concepts (e.g., internet or world wide web)
    word variations (e.g., email or e-mail)  

Title Search Examples:

 To retrieve the Title . . .    Enter the words . . .
 The cinema of apartheid : race and class in South African film     cinema of apartheid : race and class in South African film
 Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies  guns germs
 The 1940's, music, memories and milestones  1940's, music, memories and milestones.
 Fifteen centuries of children’s literature 

 15 centuries of children’s literature or
fifteen centuries of children’s literature

 Do's and taboos around the world   dos & taboos around the world or
 dos and taboos around the world
 Le Grand Meaulnes     grand meaulnes
 "And a credit to his race" : the hard life and times of  Joseph Louis Barrow, a.k.a. Joe Louis   And a credit to his race
 Alternative Search Options:
When the exact title word order is not known, try either a Keyword Search or an Advanced Search using the words of the title you do know with Boolean operators (e.g., yearbook and anthropology).

 

 

 

University Libraries | University of Louisville | Louisville, KY 40292 | 502-852-6747
Contact Us | Voyager version 5.0 | Upgraded August 22, 2005