Skip to Main Content

HIST 100: Soundscapes and Societies (Fall 2025)

Boolean (AND OR NOT)

Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.

AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: libraries AND soundscapes

OR - searches for one of the words. Example: sound OR acoustics

NOT - exclude a term. Example:  NOT "sound libraries"

Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: ("sound" OR "noise") AND libraries

Quotation Marks  ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example:  "library design"
Example: "united States"
Warning: You might exclude results. "library sounds" will exclude "library sound"

Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR repeatedly.
Example: librar* will cover libraries, library, librarians
Example: soundscape* will cover soundscape, soundscapes
Warning: You may get unexpected results. sound* will also return sounds, soundly, sounder, soundbox, soundstage, etc about 30 words total