Searching by Keyword
To help make searching your catalog successful and productive, explore these following Help topics:
What do I enter in the Find box?
How do I know which search button to use?
OK, I got some search results...
How are my search results organized?
What if my Search Results list is too long? How do I find just what I want?
What if my Search Results list is too short? How do I find more?
What do See and See also mean?
How do I look up my old searches?
How do I use my Resource List?
To start searching your catalog, you must enter either a complete word or a phrase (in quotes) and click a search button.
Searches are not case sensitive. For example, searches for give yourself goosebumps, Give YourSelf GooseBumpS, and GIVE YOURSELF GOOSEBUMPS all return the same results.
If you don't know the complete word, or aren't sure how to spell it, add an asterisk (*) to the end of what you do know. An asterisk can replace any number of letters at the end of a word. However, the * can't be used as a word's first or second letter or have any letters after it.
Examples:
You can use croc* to find "crocodiles".
If you enter teach*, Destiny finds "teach", "teacher", "teaches", and "teaching".
You could use a question mark (?) to replace a single letter. You can use more than one question mark in a word, but it can't be the first or last letter.
Example:
If you're not sure whether it's "allegators", allagators", or "alligators", search for all?gators.
A search for all* would also work, but the results list might be too long.
You can also use a question mark to find multiple forms of a word. A search for wom?n finds both "woman" and "women".
If you want to find a certain phrase, put quotation marks around it. For example, type "children's poetry" or "magic school bus".
Destiny ignores certain words, called stop words, in search terms. If you need to include stop words in your search term, switch to the Power tab, enter the term with the stop words, and select Starts with.
Depending on your library's preference, Destiny also may ignore leading articles such as "A", "An", "Los", "The", and "Un". You can leave them out of your search term.
If the title begins with an "A" that isn't a leading article, such as A, my name is Ami or G is for Galaxy, put quotation marks around the title.
Destiny ignores the punctuation in a search term.
If your search term includes words separated by a punctuation mark such as a dash, double-dash, hyphen, or slash, leave it out. When you leave it out, don't replace the punctuation mark with a space.
For example, if you're trying to find Camp Ghost-Away, enter camp ghostaway.
If you're trying to find Katie.com, enter katiecom.
You can create a search phrase from several distinct words or terms with Boolean operators between them. These operators—AND, OR, NOT—define the relationship between the words or phrases in your search term. Make sure to enter those using uppercase letters:
Keep in mind that AND narrows a search, giving you fewer results; OR expands a search, giving you more results.
Make sure, also, that you don't use OR if you mean NOT.
Example:
You want to find a nonfiction book by Isaac Asimov that isn't about science. If you search for asimov NOT fiction OR science, your results won't include fiction but will contain science. You should search for asimov NOT fiction NOT science.
If you misspell a search word, or Destiny cannot find your word, Destiny asks you, Did you mean...?. If Destiny's word is correct—if it's the word you want—click the word to see the search results. If not, click Refine your search and try again.
Example:
If you type dinasors, Destiny asks you, Did you mean "dinosaurs"?. Click dinosaurs if that's the word you meant to enter.
If you're not sure when or how to use the different search options, see these examples:
When you enter a word or term and click Keyword, Destiny returns a list of items with that word almost anywhere in the record.
The Keyword Search is best used when you have a complex search term that contains keywords from more than one of the other searches (author, title, subject, or series).
For example, searching on "Willy Wonka" AND Dahl (title and author keywords) gets this result:
Charlie and the great glass elevator: the further adventures of Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka, chocolate-maker extraordinary by Roald Dahl.
Searching on Goosebumps AND Stine AND legend (series and author and title keywords) results in just Legend of the lost legend by R. L. Stine. Had you just searched on just one of those three words, your results list may have been quite long. (There are about 100 books in the Goosebumps series, several authors named Stine, and dozens of books with "legend" in the title.)
To search for all items with the word "west", type west and click Keyword.
With such a common word, the Search Results list would probably be very long. It could include items like these:
If the list is too large, enter a more specific term or choose another search type.
back to "How do I know which search button to use?"
(back to the top)
When you enter a word or term and click Title, you get a list of items with that word anywhere in the title.
For example, to search for all items with the word "west" in the title, type west and click Title.
The Search Results list could include items like these:
back to "How do I know which search button to use?"
(back to the top)
If you know the author of a book, and want to find others written by the same one, enter all or part of the name and click Author.
For example, if you type west and click Author, you would get items with that word anywhere in the author's name, like these:
Author and illustrator names are stored in similar places in the records, so you can search for items illustrated by particular person using the same steps.
back to "How do I know which search button to use?"
(back to the top)
If you want to find items about a certain subject, topic, person, or place, enter all or part of it and click Subject.
Make sure to use the plural form, if your search term has one, instead of the singular. Enter flies instead of fly or lions instead of lion.
For example, if you type west and click Subject, you would get items with that word anywhere in the list of their subjects, like these:
back to "How do I know which search button to use?"
(back to the top)
If you enjoyed a book that belongs to a series, like Goosebumps or The Baby-Sitters Club, and want to find books in the same series, enter all or part of the series name, and click Series.
For example, if you type west and click Series, you would get items with that word anywhere in the series name, like these:
back to "How do I know which search button to use?"
(back to the top)
If your library subscribes to One Search, Destiny includes One Search databases in every search. The search results from the online databases are on the One Search tab.
These words are so common that searching on them is not productive. To save time, Destiny ignores them when they are used in Basic and Power searches. You can leave them out of your search term.
Destiny provides the following stop words. Your library may have a different list.
There are tabs for different types of materials:
You can add any of these materials and resources to a Resource List. They appear on separate tabs there, too.
If your Search Results list is too large, refine your search, using a more exact term. By default, Destiny only returns things that include all your words.
Tips:
If the Search Results list is still too long, or doesn't contain what you want, try the Power Search.
If you get too few results, you can either refine your search or browse through a list of library materials.
You can refine your search using some of these methods:
You could browse through a list: Just click browse subjects. Depending on the button you clicked, it might be browse titles, browse authors, browse series, or browse subjects.
Note: You won't have a browse link if your search included limiters.
or 
.
.To erase your search term and any limiters you've set, just click 
Reset All next to the Find box.
These are cross-references. If your library has them, you may see them when browsing. Your library uses them to point you to the correct term or to more information.
See means that the search term you used is listed under a different name.
For example, if you search for cars, the browse list may show "cars See: automobiles." You can click that link to see the listing for automobiles. Next time, just search for automobiles.
See also means that, while your search term is correct, there are other topics containing related or additional information that may be useful to you.
For example, if you search for automobiles, your results could include "automobiles See also: Ford automobiles." You can click that link to see books about those.
These are the books that have been checked out the most in the last month. You can click 
to see the list of the top ten titles for your library.
For more information about any of them, click its 
.
You can look up and repeat any previous searches you performed by clicking
.
On the Search History page that opens, you can redo any search by clicking its name.
You won't see until you perform at least one search.
With your List, you can create and print a customized list of your search results. This can be useful when doing research and for finding the books on the shelves.
To add all of the items in the Search Results list to your List, click
at the top of the page.
To add just the ones you are interested in, click 
next to each one. Then, to see, edit, and print your List, click on the side menu.
If you don't want to make a custom list, you can print out the entire Search Results list by clicking 
and then using your browser's Print option.