General Search

You are interested in film and cinema in Cannes. You could try the following searches:

Film OR Cinema
Widens the search to find records indexed with either the word film or the word cinema.

Film AND Cannes
Finds records indexed with the word film as well as the word Cannes.

Film AND NOT Cannes
Restricts the search to find records indexed with the word film, but not the word Cannes.

(Film OR Cinema) AND Cannes
Widens the search to find records indexed with the words film and/or cinema, as well as the word Cannes.

Advanced Search

You can perform these searches in the Search and the Advanced Search screen. The Advanced Search might look similar to the following:

Search Term Field Medium

Film All fields Any Media
OR
Cinema All fields Any Media
AND
Cannes All fields Any Media

You can also search on specific fields using the Advanced Search. This is particularly useful if you want to retrieve something specific, e.g. a film, a book, and it can help users who only remember part of the information. For instance, you are looking for the book A tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. You remember the author as Dickens and remember the book was about a city, or maybe cities.

Search Term Field Medium

City Title Book
OR
Cities Title Book
AND
Dickens Author Book

To search for the film or video, change the entry in the Medium field as appropriate. If you want any medium which might be available, e.g. book, film, video and audio tape, select the default option Any Media in the Medium field.

To search for material about Charles Dickens, but not books that he wrote:

Search Term Field Medium

Charles Dickens All fields Any Media
AND NOT
Charles Dickens Author Any Media

Truncation Term and Wildcards

Use the wildcard * and the truncation term ? to expand your search.

The truncation term ? replaces a single letter and is often used at the end of a word, or when words can be spelled in different ways, e.g.
" Speciali?ed equipment to retrieve hits catalogued as specialised/specialized equipment
" Wa? retrieves hits relating to wax as well as war and any hit indexed with the word was
" Wa?er retrieves hits indexed on the terms water, wager and wafer

The wildcard * replaces a single, or a string of letters. It is generally used for wider searches, though it is useful if you are not sure of the spelling e.g. of names.
" Wa* retrieves hits relating to war, wax, water, wagons, walls and so on
" Ga* retrieves hits relating to gardening, gales, gannets and so on
" "Van Go*" retrieves hits relating to Van Gogh
" B*thoven retrieves hits relating to Beethoven