Entering Search Statements
When processing search statements, the WebPAC observes certain rules in regards to the following:
Capitalization
Search statements can be entered in uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case. WebPAC is case-insensitive.
Punctuation
When processing search statements, the WebPAC observes the following rules regarding punctuation:
- The ampersand (&) is treated as if it were the word "and" spelled out
- Apostrophes are removed
- Most other punctuation marks are replaced by spaces for purposes of searching
- WebPAC treats repeated spaces or repeated punctuation marks (other than the ampersand and the apostrophe) as a single space, e.g., " --- " is treated as " ". Whether or not these punctuation marks are included has no effect on a search.
| Examples of equivalent searches | ||
|---|---|---|
| All the King's Men | All the Kings Men | |
| Fathers & Sons | Fathers and Sons | |
| O'Malley, Walter | Omalley Walter | |
| Mexico--history | Mexico history | |
| U.S. News | U S News | U. S. News |
Special Considerations
- While the above three "U.S. News" entries are equivalent to each other, they are NOT equivalent to "US News" (since there is no space between the 'U' and 'S')
- Punctuation is not stripped for Z39.50 searches.
Diacritics
WebPAC supports the full ALA character set, with appropriately-configured browsers.
Chinese Characters
WebPAC supports display of Chinese characters with appropriately-configured browsers.
Initial Articles
WebPAC ignores articles at the beginning of title search statements (for example, "the") based on the Characters removed from beginning of user-typed search option in Admin Corner. For more information, see Initial Articles: Coordinating Cataloging Practices with User Searches.
When sorting MARC 21 (USMARC) entries by title in search results, WebPAC takes into account the MARC 21 format specifications concerning when to ignore initial articles in titles (i.e., the second indicator of the 245 field). Where the MARC 21 format is incomplete (e.g., for a subfield t of a 7xx field which begins with an English language article), WebPAC will still file the entry correctly.