To go to the Ebook Central site directly, please click on the link below:
Ebook Central
Searching (General Information)
Ebook Central helps you find the information you need as quickly and as easily as possible. You can narrow down or expand a search using operators or information you already have such as author or language.
- Subject search allows you to browse all books for a subject.
- Chapter searches often result in the best matches for your query.
- Once you have a list of results for your search, click the "Show Table of Contents" button underneath the title to show how frequently the search term occurs in each chapter.
- Click the title link in the search results to open the title's information page.
- Your search requests for the current session are under the Recent tab on the search page.
Performing a Search
Performing a search is the easiest way to understand how search works.
To perform a search
- Type a single search term in the search field at the top of a page (for example "bees"), and click Search.
- A list of the most relevant documents is displayed.
- To narrow down your search, type a search term that uses a Boolean search operator in the search field, for example, "bees AND pollination".
- All documents that contain both search terms are displayed.
- Next, focus your search by choosing one of the subjects in the Focus your search area. The available topics depend on the documents at your site, but you might be able to choose "North America" or "Fiction", and click Search.
- The Advanced Search fields are displayed above the Focus your search area. The fields use the search terms you selected.
- Click the plus (+) button to add a search descriptor, then use the drop-down menu to choose a descriptor. You might know the author or have other information such as the document language, then click the Search button below your search results.
Next, you might be interested in a chapter search, which shows you which of the chapters searched has the best chapter ranking.
- Click the Chapter Rank tab to see a chapter-ranked list.
- A list of the most relevant twenty chapters appears. See Chapter Search for more information.
- Click the highlighted chapter name or page range to view the document. You have two choices:
- Click the link to view the first page of the highlighted chapter or page range.
- Click the magnifying glass icon to view the first occurrence of the search term.
- In the Online Reader, you can use the toolbar arrow buttons to move from page to page and the arrows with magnifying glass buttons to move from search result to search result.
- When you're done exploring the document, click the Search tab again to perform additional searches or just enter a different term into the simple search field.
Narrowing and Expanding the Search Focus
You can narrow and expand the search focus using these tools:
- Use operators to specify conditions (AND, OR, NOT) or proximity of two terms (WITHIN). For more information click here: Boolean and Proximity Searches.
- Use Focus your search check boxes and Advanced fields if you already have some information about the document, such as the title or publisher, or to constrain the search in other ways, for example, by language.
- Use chapter search to find the chapters that contain the search term more often.
- Click All subjects, select one of the subjects, and narrow the subject set with each click.
- Limit your search to a collection or your bookshelf. Click Advanced, and select Collection in the Search in pop-up. You can then choose one of the available collections, or My Bookshelf if you are signed in.
Examining Search Results
You can further focus your search while examining search results.
- To change the order of the search results, sort them alphabetically by title, contributor, publisher, or release date.
- To view the contents of a document, click the Show Table of Contents button in the search results. The display shows which chapters contain the search term(s). A bar next to the chapter name shows the ranking.
- To view a document, you have these choices:
- Click the cover image.
- Click the title.
- Click the magnifying glass in the table of contents to open the document at the first occurrence of the search term.
- Click a chapter title in the table of contents to view the first page of that chapter.
