Help Using the SBCGS Catalog

The SBCGS catalog search provides basic controls to allow you to quickly find any volume you want. These controls are common to many other similar searches on the Web, so you may find these familiar.

Basic Search

This search panel contains the following fields that you can use to control what is found in the catalog.

Search Field	This is a drop down field to indicate which part of each title's record you want to search. Use the arrow if you wish to search a more specific term than Keyword — Title/Subtitle, Author/Co-Author, Subject or Call Number.
Value	Enter your search term here: Maryland, Virginia, The source, Redbook, Beacon, NGS quarterly, etc. You might get a better response if you do not include any articles (a, an or the). It is important to note that the search is "unbounded" meaning that it will match any portion of the particular field: will will match will as well as willing and twill. Also note that the search is "case-insensitive" so that searching for virginia will match both virginia and Virginia.
Collection	If you are only interested in a particular collection, such as periodicals, books, or microfiche, you can narrow your search down even further to specific types of materials.

Looking at the Results

Once you've entered your search and pressed the Search button, you will be given a list with the titles that were found by the search. This list will be limited to showing only 20 titles, but you can easily browse through much larger results by using result pages. Depending on your search you may have one or several of these pages. Use the Page or Display Mode buttons to navigate these pages.

Page Buttons
	⟨⟨	Move to the first result page for the search.
	⟨	Move to the previous result page for the search.
	⟩	Move to the next result page for the search.
	⟩⟩	Move to the last result page for the search.

Display Mode Buttons
	Table View	This shows the basic title information and is the default display. If you use your cursor to hover over a title you will see the rest of the information.
	Full View	By selecting Full View you will see the entire record including the holdings for the title — volumes, issues, etc. — that the SBCGS library holds. This is important especially if you're far away and looking for a specific issue of a periodical, or a volume in a series.

Using Wildcards

You can extend a simple search by using wildcards. On this site there are two types of wildcards available for your use. Each of these can be used more than once in a search value to create a much more generalized pattern. Also remember that all searching is case-insensitive.

	*	The asterisk character is used to represent any zero or more characters. For example, the search string county* will match both county and country.
	.	The "period" character matches exactly one character, but will match any one character. For example, the search string all.n will match allan and allen, but it won't match alln or allwyn.

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South Bay Cities Genealogical Society