Illinet Online is the web-interface to the Wheaton College libraries’ catalog.
Wheaton College is a member of the ILCSO consortium of 56 academic and special
libraries throughout the state of Illinois.
It is important to note that the first search option, Any Word Anywhere,
is not exactly what it claims to be. This option, which is consortium-mandated,
was chosen because it provided the greatest searching flexibility without
creating confusion for the patron. The “any word anywhere” search
looks for any word that has been typed into the text box. When the
search is begun the catalog will retrieve any record that contains any of
the words that were provided, not necessarily all of the words provided,
and then it will attempt to list them according to a relevance ranking.
Ultimately, you may receive many more “hits” than you anticipated.
One of the ways to insure that you have executed a successful search is to
consider using the Boolean Search option, but this requires that you have
a good understanding of Boolean language and searching.
Though the Any Word Anywhere search is the default search option, this is not the only one provided to the patron on the Quick Search screen.
A patron may search using Start of Title. This search should omit any articles (e.g. An, The, El, La, etc) from the beginning of a title. If you want to find The Red Badge of Courage you would want to search using “red badge”. If the “the” is not omitted your search will not be successful.
Just as there is a search option for the start of a title, a search option is provided to search for Start of Magazine/Journal Title. This search operates in the same manner as the general Title search in that you need to drop any articles at the beginning of the title.
As mentioned earlier, Illinet Online offers a Boolean Search option. For the experienced searcher, searching using Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) can produce extremely specific search results with minimal effort. If you were looking for resources on learning disabilities in children you could create a search string (e.g. (child? or teen?) and “learning disabilities”) that would search for anything with child, children, or childhood, etc. or teen, teens, or teenagers, etc. along with learning disabilities. In forty simple characters numerous search permutations have been created, executed, and returned together.
Illinet Online also provides the ability to browse various indexes, such as Browse Subject, Browse Author, and Browse Call Number. These searches search for terms in linear fashion. If you were searching for John Updike and typed “John Updike” in the text entry box you will not find anything by this author. The search must be typed “Updike, John” in order to work properly. Browse options require knowledge of how the information is stored in order to successfully retrieve it. If you want to use the Call Number option you must be familiar with the format of the particular numbers you wish to browse.
Another browse feature that is provided is the Browse Prolific Author/Composer. This search is similar to the Browse Author search, but the search results also contain title information along with the author name. This search works best for authors or composers who have produced multiple works.
