TAFEcat Support: Searching

The TAFEcat search bar appears at the top of every TAFEcat page.

Just add your keywords into the Search catalogue bar and click the Search button.

• This search will give you the most results possible: all eResources, all collections on shelves, all libraries.
• Clicking on the TAFE NSW waratah logo in the search bar will clear your search results and the search bar.

If you want to refine or narrow your search, read on!

Everything Drop-down - Select Item Type Or Location

Using the Everything option will search for your resources across all item types- both physical and eResources, across all collections and all libraries.

You can narrow your search by selecting a search target e.g. eBooks and eVideos only or you can select a single library.

If you choose the single library option, the search will include all item types including eResources.

Narrowing By Field

The second drop-down list allows you to narrow your search to where the terms appear in the record. If you are looking for a specific Author, choose the Author field. If you know the title of the item you want, choose the Title field.

You can also choose to leave this set to All Fields.

To include multiple fields in your search, e.g.  Author and Title or a particular publisher or date range, you can further narrow your search once the results are displayed at the next step.

Once your results are displayed, you can further narrow your results by using the Limit Search Results options. These options appear on the left of the screen for Library Results or the right of the screen for Database Results

Library Results (selected options)

• Format e.g. book or DVD
• Author
• Publication date - use the slide bar or type in the date range
• Only show available items (applies to on shelf collections only).

Database Results (selected options)

• Peer reviewed - for scholarly articles
• Full text only
• Publication title. 

More information on the database Limiting and expanding results displayed box

Including terms

• AND is assumed between each of the keywords use. Only items that include all of your terms will be found

Excluding terms

• A minus sign/dash before a term will exclude that term e.g. cats -dogs will exclude any items that mention dogs in the record

Exact phrase matching

• Use quote marks " " to find the exact phrase e.g. "public garden management"