Boolean Operators

Boolean operators or connectors can be used to improve your search results. When using either the simple or advanced search, you can use either AND, OR, or NOT. You can also group them together.

• AND narrows a search. It is the default search method used in the simple search.
  

  This search ...	... would find ...	these results.
  baseball and university	records with both of these words	[View results of sample search]
  african and american* and art*	records with all three of these words and their variants	[View results of sample search]

• OR broadens a search.

  This search ...	... would find ...	these results.
  baseball or football	records with either or both these words	[View results of sample search]
  teacher* or professor* or educator*	records with any combination of these words or their variants	[View results of sample search]

• NOT eliminates terms from a search.

  This search ...	... would find ...	these results.
  brunswick not stew	records with brunswick that don't contain stew	[View results of sample search]
  distill* not turpentine	records with variants of distill that don't contain turpentine	[View results of sample search]

You can also group search terms together to create more complex searches by using parentheses.