Advanced Search

The Advanced Search option in MetaLib is very similar to the basic or Simple search. It offers you a little more control of your search process. To use it, click on the Advanced tab on the initial search screen.

This screen allows you to specify what kind of a search you want : an Author, Title, or Subject search, and so on. Choose the field you want from the drop-down menu.

You can also choose one of the Boolean operators And, Or or Without (Not) from a small drop-down menu on the right. This allows you to coordinate two search terms : two ideas or concepts, two authors' names, an author's name and a subject, or whatever.

As you see, the options are still very limited, even in this Advanced Search mode. You can't search the Scripture Citation field in the religion databases, for instance. (There is some talk of adding this field to MetaLib in the future.) You also cannot limit your search to a specific type of material, such as book reviews. You can't limit by language, or restrict your search to full-text only. The simplicity of the search interface is nice, because there is no complicated procedure to learn. But this simplicity is also its greatest drawback, if you want to conduct a carefully targeted or refined search.

If you need truly advanced search capabilities, we recommend that you learn to use the native interface of the religion databases. The ATLA Religion Database provided by OCLC FirstSearch has very powerful and precise search capabilities; the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts by EBSCO are also quite efficient and sophisticated. You can connect to these resources directly from our Online Databases page; also, instructions for using them are available on our Tutorials page.

Likewise, you may search the Morton Library catalog quickly and easily using MetaLib. But if you need any refined search features, you will need to go and search our Catalog directly, using its own native interface. Detailed instructions for the use of our catalog are also available on our Tutorials page.