Combining two words with NOT can be useful for limiting your search when you are using a keyword that seems potentially useful but that is producing a lot of hits not relevant to your subject area.
|
This keyword search would allow you to target treatments of the Sherlock Holmes that do not involve Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A search on "Sherlock Holmes" in the online catalog would yield over 90 records; adding "not doyle" reduces your hits to about 25 records. |
One major problem with using "not" is that it can exclude many useful sources, so be cautious about using this operator in your searches.
Click here to return to Refining Your Search Using Boolean Operators.