Your initial set of results will be automatically sorted by relevance, determined by:
You may want to change this default setting to sort in other ways. Alternative sort options include Date-newest, Date-oldest, Title, or Author. Each of these options are available through the Sort By dropdown menu.
There are a few filtering options immediately available above your search results:
For a complete list of filters, you’ll need to select the “All Filters” button.
Click "All Filters” below the search bar to view additional filtering options. This will pop open a menu from the left-hand side of your screen. Use this menu to apply filters and narrow down your search results.
The two toggles at the top of the filters menu only apply when you are searching the Everything scope.
By default, your LibrarySearch results include your search terms in fields such as title, subject, and author, but some records in LibrarySearch allow you to expand your search to the full text of the resources. Toggle this option to search for your search terms in the full text of some materials.
Keep in mind that full text searching is only supported for certain types of electronic resources and does not apply to most items in the library catalogue, including print books.
If your search terms are only found in the full text of the resource, not in fields like title or subject, those items will appear lower in the relevance-ranked results list.
Full text searching is most useful when your search terms are very specific, and you’re interested in results that only mention your topic briefly.
By default, LibrarySearch only finds items that you have physical or electronic access to via U of T, but you can switch this toggle to include some electronic results that may not be immediately available. This means that once you’re signed in you can request a copy from another library.
Clicking on a filter will immediately re-run your search with the new filter. If you want to include multiple options from the list, select all of the filters you want and then scroll down to the bottom of the filter section and select the Apply Filters button. Clicking the box to the left will include the filter, clicking the box to the right will exclude it.
Most filters show the five options with the most matching titles: by clicking Show More you can see up to the top two most common options, but this may not be all the options in your search results.
Results can be narrowed by selecting one or more filters from the following filter groups:
Show Only: These filters allow you to refine your results to include only results that are:
Open Access: This identifies items that are not restricted to view their content. Material with this indicator might be openly licensed or simply free to read without any reuse rights. Check copyright status or terms of use for the item to confirm if permission is required for reuse. If you have further questions, contact copyright@library.utoronto.ca.
Peer-reviewed Articles: LibrarySearch is integrated with UlrichsWeb, a periodical index that includes the peer-review status of more than 30,000 journals. When you select this filter, LibrarySearch narrows your results to those Ulrichsweb indicates are peer-reviewed articles.
Online: Library collections available via the Internet.
Physical Copy: Library collections accessible only in person.
Course Code and Name
Only available in the Course Reserves Scope. Shows the combination of the course code and name the item is on a reading list for.
Course Instructor
Only available in the Course Reserves scope.
Shows the name of the instructor who placed the item on Course Reserve.
Format
This group of filters allows you to narrow your results to items available in a specific format or group of formats. The list of format options is dynamic, always beginning with the format appearing most commonly in your set of results and descending through relevant formats in order of frequency. Only formats present in your search results will appear in this filter group.
Library
This filter can be used to narrow your results to titles that have at least one item in a given library. For instance, selecting "Collection Development Dept (Central Library Acquisitions)" will narrow your results to only books available at this library. Appears in alphabetical order.
Location in Library (Catalogue scope only)
Subject
This filter lists the Subject Headings each source in your results list has been tagged with. Subjects are listed in order of prominence within your results.
LibrarySearch uses a combination of Library of Congress, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), and subject tags from article databases. Search results can be narrowed through the selection or exclusion of multiple subject headings.
Publication Date
The two boxes will have the years of the oldest and newest title in your results. To narrow your results, change the dates to match the range you’re interested in, then scroll to the bottom of the filters and select “Apply filters.”
Language
This filter lists the top 20 languages represented in your search results.
Author/Creator
Only available in catalogue search (for more information on catalogue search, see the Basic Search section of this guide). Options include principal authors, corporate authors, and government agencies.
Genre
Only available in the catalogue search. This shows the Library of Congress Genre Form Term – not the popular usage (e.g “Biography” is a genre form term, but “science fiction” is not).
New to the Library
This filter is a great way to keep up to date on the newest items added to the library collection.
Journal Title
Use this to limit your search results to articles from a specific journal.
