1. Put search terms in brackets and use ‘OR’ to account for variants:  (film OR cinema) women
2. Use an asterisk to truncate terms:  pollut* finds pollute, pollutes, pollutant, pollutants, polluting, pollution.

3. Use a question mark to account for variants: wom?n finds women or woman

4. Put your search terms in quotation marks to search for a phrase: “pooh bear” searches for the bear, not bear pooh

5. Use the advanced search options to search in a specific field, such as the title or subject heading field.

6. Identify subject headings in the record of relevant items and incorporate them into other searches.

7. Look either side of books in the library to see other titles on the same topic or use the ‘virtual browse’ function to do this online.