Trove Tuesday - Search Tips part 1

To get the most out of searching Trove, there are a number of search tips you can use to optimise your results.

Phrase searches

•        Enclose search terms in quotes, eg:

–       “John Argent"

–       "South Australia" elections

Wildcard searches

•        Specify wild cards or truncate word endings with an * , eg:

–       math* tutor*

Boolean searches

•        Use AND, OR and NOT and brackets to create boolean expressions. You can use a minus sign next to the word in place of NOT, eg:

–       (cats AND dogs) NOT rabbits

–       “Moreton Bay" -Brisbane

When looking for articles on the death of my great uncle Norman Clark in a shark attack, I use his name as a phrase search "Norman Clark".  This looks for both words, together, as a phrase.  Just searching Norman Clark, without the quotes, brings back any article with the two words anywhere in the article, even paragraphs apart.  I then add a boolean term - AND shark - to only include search results that also contain that word.

So the search "Norman Clark AND shark bring back 278 results - articles from all over the country.

A treasure trove indeed!