Search in Sofia
Advanced search
This functionality is a more complete form to specify various criteria, ensuring more relevant results. To access the advanced search page click on the “Advanced Search” link in the navigation bar below the Sofia logo.
Advanced search includes different types of boxes, where users specify their criteria, or “index”. This includes different types of information to describe an item (title, author, editor, year of publication, language, ISBN, etc.).
You may add search boxes with the “+ Add row” button.
Click here to access the index list and definitions.
Advanced search includes other options:
- Search a specific database or group of databases;
- Narrow results to open access or scientific articles;
- Request a specific format;
- Specify a range of publication dates;
- Select a branch or library.
Entry Guidelines
To avoid incomplete search results, follow these guidelines for keywords:
| Case | The case does not affect search results. Keywords are upper case, lower case, or a combination of both. However, Boolean operators (see Search tips) are upper case. |
| Stop words |
Avoid French or English stop words (le, la, les, du, de, des, a, an, but, the, etc.) because the Sofia discovery tool does not take them into account. Use quotation marks " ” for stop words that must be taken into account with the search. Example: The = “the”. |
| Punctuation and diacritical signs | Avoid punctuation or diacritical signs. Example: é=e, à=a, ç=c, ù=u, etc. |
| Apostrophe (‘) | Avoid apostrophes (‘) and the letter preceding them, or omit the apostrophe and space between the words preceding and following the apostrophe. To include all variations, link both options with a Boolean OR. Example: for l’Étranger, enter etranger OR letranger |
| Hyphens |
Use hyphens (-) or replace hyphens with a space. Example: sans-abri, sans abri |
