What is Popsi ( Postulation based permuted subject indexing) POPSI

Search Techniques

 

 Search techniques are ways of using search terms in finding required information from search tools. Search tools are many; e.g., Online Public Catalogues- OPAC, general search engines, search directories and portals as well as online databases or deep web.  To achieve good search results, it is necessary to use search techniques. The following are some of the most common search techniques and principles that are applicable to various searching tools

 

 1.  Boolean Logic

 2.  Parenthesis

 3. Phrase searching

 4. Truncation

 5. Wildcards

 6. Field searching

 7. Proximity searching

 

BOOLEAN LOGIC

 

Boolean logic (1847)  is a logical relationship of search terms. It is named after the British mathematician George Boole (1815-64).  Boolean logic is used to narrow or  focus  the  search  or  to  broaden  the  search  depending  on  the information  that  the  user  wants  to  retrieve.  Boolean  logic  helps  the  user  to  achieve  relevancy  in  the  search results  and  it  also  assists  in  quick  retrieval  of  information

 

·       AND – Narrows the search

·       OR - Broadens the search

·       NOT – excludes unwanted words or concepts to focus the search

·       XOR is also another operator you find available when using some databases

 

AND

AND links terms together in a way that makes your search narrower. Using AND tells the computer that you want records that contain all the words you specify

dog and cat

 If the record contains  only  the  word "dog",  it  won't  show  up.  Likewise,  if  it  only  contains  the  word  "cat", the search will ignore it. The record has to contain both terms for the search to return.

 

OR

OR is,  in  some  ways,  the  exact  opposite  of AND.  Instead  of  narrowing  a  search, OR widens  it  by  turning  up records that have either term you specify. For instance, a search on dog or cat will get you all the records that contain the word "dog", as well as all the ones  that  contain  the  word  "cat

 

NOT

 Finally, NOT is a term that allows you to exclude records with certain words from your search. Specifying dogs not cats would get you all the records that contain the word "dogs" EXCEPT the ones that also contain the word "cats."  For  instance,  if  we  had  a  book  whose  title  was  "The  Complete  Book  of  Dogs  and  Cats",  that  record would not show up, even though it had the word "dogs" in it, because it also contains the word "cats

 

XOR

The last operator we will cover here is the "XOR," or the "exclusive or" operator. XOR is used to locate records matching any of the specified terms but not all of the specified terms. For example, "dogs XOR cats" will find items with the word "dog" or the word "cat" in the record, but will not return items which have both terms in the record.