Search Precision

The Precision setting determines how many words in the search phrase need to be in the record for it to be returned in a search, and how close together in the record the search terms have to be.

There are four settings:

• Strict; words must be adjacent - Words must adjacent but can be in any order; one drop word allowed for search phrases containing 5 words or above, two drop words allowed for search phrases containing 9 or more words.
• Standard; words must be close - Word span two words more than the number of search words for searches containing 2 or 3 words, three words extra for those containing 4 or 5 words, four words extra for those containing 6 or 7 terms and 5 words extra for those containing 9 or more words. One drop word allowed for phrases containing four words or above, two drop words for phrases containing six or seven words, three drop words for terms containing eight words or above.
• Loose; words can be in any order (in the phrase) - Word span of 20 for all searches. One drop word allowed for searches containing 3 or 4 words, two drop words for searches of 5 or 6 words, three drop words for searches containing from 7 to 9 words and four for searches of 10 or more words.
• Freeform; words can be anywhere in the record - No word span restrictions set: words can be anywhere in the record. One drop word allowed for searches containing 4 or 5 words, two drop words allowed for searches containing 6 or 7 words, three for searches containing 8 or more words.

For phrases linked by Booleans, the precision setting is applied to each individual component. For example, the search harry potter AND deathly hallows is considered to be two separate two-word phrases. Stoplist words are not excluded from the word span calculations. For example, if you search for harry potter deathly and the precision setting is set to Strict, the title ‘harry potter and the deathly hallows’ will not be returned even if ‘and’ and ‘the’ are stopwords.

To change the precision setting used, ensure you are logged in then select Preferences from the top menu.

After running a search, it is possible to re-run it using a different precision setting. To do this, select Change display from the search results page, then select the new search precision to use, then click OK. This will re-run the search using the new precision. The new precision setting will be used for subsequent searches until the reader logs out or changes the precision setting again.

Select the required precision setting in the Change display box. This is displayed below the search boxes on the Advanced search screen. To display it on the Search screen, click Search Options.