Search/Browse Help - Keyword Search
About Keyword Search
Keyword Search provides a single search box to find words and phrases anywhere in the LC Catalog record or in title, author/creator, or subject fields. Search results are returned by relevance. An Expert option is available from the Keyword Search menu for searchers who prefer command-driven queries.
The Keyword Search shortcut URL is: https://catalog.loc.gov/keyword
Keyword Search can be helpful if you're looking for specific items but are unsure, for example, of the complete name of an author/creator or the first words of a title. Drop-down menu options let you filter your keywords by title, author/creator, and subject. More specific keyword filtering is available with Advanced Search. You can also toggle open context-sensitive search tips or click Search/Browse Help from either the menu at the top of your screen or the Help link at the bottom of your screen.

Keyword (ALL)
Finds all words in any order or exact phrases located anywhere in the record. Use Keyword (ALL) when you're not sure what fields contain the words or phrases you need or when your searches return no results using other search types.
Search terms … | Retrieves records containing … | |
---|---|---|
washington history | both words anywhere in the record washington and history could be part of a name, title, note, or subject heading |
|
"eating and drinking" | the exact phrase (including the word "and") Search results will change if you search: "eating drinking" or "eating & drinking" |
|
"history of analog comput?" | the exact phrase, with ? used as a wild card for multiple characters or truncation "history of analog computer, computers, computing, computation" | |
col%r photography | both words in any order, with % used as a wild card for one character photography and color, colur, coler |
|
jo?nson catalog? | both words in any order, with ? used as a wild card for multiple characters or truncation joynson, johnson, johannson and catalog, catalogue, cataloger |
Keyword (TITLE)
Finds all words or phrases in title areas of the record. Title areas include main titles, uniform titles, alternate titles, titles in links, and titles in tables of contents. Use Keyword (TITLE) when you know several words from the title but are unsure in what order the words appear.
Search terms … | Finds records with titles containing … |
---|---|
dummies photoshop | both words "dummies" and "photoshop" anywhere in any title |
fraser photoshop | both words "fraser" and "photoshop" anywhere in any title; for example, "fraser" can be the last name of an author who writes Photoshop books |
"camera raw" | the exact phrase "camera raw" in any title |
源氏目案 | all characters treated as separate words |
Keyword (AUTHOR/CREATOR)
Finds all words or phrases in the names of people or groups responsible for creating or collecting a work:
- Personal authors and creators, including individuals and families who serve as editors, performers, photographers, artists, etc.
- Non-personal authors and creators, including corporations, government bodies, conferences, jurisdictions, projects, events, and entities like ships and musical groups.
Enter one or more parts of the name in any order. Results will be displayed as a Titles List, sorted by relevance. Entering more parts of the name should make your search more precise (each result will contain ALL of the words you enter).
Note that if you are looking for materials about an author or creator (real or fictional), search by Keyword (SUBJECT).
Search terms … | Name type … | Finds records with names containing … |
---|---|---|
john steinbeck | personal name | both words (in any order) as an author/creator |
"congressional budget office" | government agency | the exact phrase as an author/creator |
battelle institut? | company or organization | both words (in any order) as an author/creator, with institut truncated |
creative writing conference | conference | all words (in any order) as an author/creator |
Keyword (SUBJECT)
Finds all words or phrases in subject areas of the record. Subjects include topical subjects, geographical place names, occupations, and genres/forms of material. Subjects are selected from controlled lists of words or phrases used by the Library of Congress.
Search terms … | Finds records with subjects containing … |
---|---|
italian composers | Composers, Italian or Composers--Italy--Biography--Dictionaries--Italian |
exhibitions african art | Art, African--Exhibitions or African American art--19th century-- Exhibitions |
eugene oneill | O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953 |
berenstain bears | Berenstain Bears (Fictitious character) |
"san joaquin estuary" | Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary (Calif.) |
new england railroads | Railroads--New England or Railroads--Freight--New England |
Keyword (ALL) Quick Search
A Keyword (ALL) Quick Search box, located at the top of every LC Catalog page, finds all words in any order or exact phrases located anywhere in catalog records.

Relevancy Ranking
Keyword Search results are displayed as a Titles List in ranked order using a special relevancy algorithm. Relevancy ranking is commonly used for most web searches, but web search engines rely on different formulas to determine relevancy. The LC Catalog uses the following ranking factors:
- Uniqueness of search terms within the LC Catalog
- Proximity of search terms to each other within the LC Catalog record
- Number of times a search word is present in LC Catalog record fields (e.g., in a subject heading field, author field, title field)
Punctuation, Diacritics, Special Characters, Non-Latin Characters
Most marks of punctuation in your search query are converted to spaces. Most diacritics and some punctuation marks are removed (including apostrophes, alifs, ayns, middle dots, primes and double primes). A few special characters, however, are retained in searches: ampersands (&), plus signs (+), at signs (@), number signs (#), and musical flat (♭) and natural (♮) signs (musical sharps are converted to spaces). Special characters are generally converted to their nearest alphabetic equivalent (for example: an æ diagraph to ae or a þ thorn to th).
Records in the LC Catalog use Unicode opens in a new window (UTF-8 encoding) for searching and displaying data. In addition to Latin scripts, the catalog contains records in the following languages/scripts: Chinese, Japanese, Korean; Cyrillic-based scripts; Greek; Hebrew, Yiddish; and Perso-Arabic script (e.g., Arabic, Persian, Pushto, Sindhi, Urdu). For more information, see Searching/Displaying Non-Latin Characters.
In general, your preferred web browser settings will not need to be changed to correctly view records that contain diacritics, special characters, or non-Latin characters. If you have problems, however, you may need to reconfigure your browser opens in a new window. Best results occur if you have Unicode fonts and use Unicode character encoding with automatic character encoding activated.
Adding Limits
To filter your search, toggle open Add Limits and select:
- Year Published/Created of the material
- Language of the material
- Type of material (e.g., book, periodical, music score)
- Location of the collection within the Library of Congress
- Place of Publication (e.g., country, state, province)
Searches in the LC Catalog can return thousands of results. Search limits can be useful to refine your results, but should be used with caution. Many older records do not contain the data that is used to set limits, and so these records will not appear in search results. Similarly, some formats of material (such a images) may not contain data such as language information; limiting by language will exclude these records from your results. In addition, when multiple values (e.g., several languages) are encoded in a single field of a catalog record, limits can only retrieve the first language. If relevant material is not retrieved with limits set, clear the limits and modify the search.
Search Tips for Keyword (ALL, TITLE, AUTHOR/CREATOR, SUBJECT)
- Enter words or phrases in any order. Search results will match all words (including articles and conjunctions in all languages, such as: and, or, not, the, a, la, das, al-, etc.).
- Search results are ranked using a relevancy algorithm. To improve the relevancy of your results, try including more words or phrases in your search.
- Try quotation marks (" ") when searching words you want treated as a phrase (e.g., "tax reform"). These four Keyword Search options find phrases across subfields.
- Use a percent sign (%) as a single character wildcard, either inside or at the end of a search term (e.g., col%r retrieves color, coler, and colur, but not colour). If your search terms contain a percent sign, remove the %. For example, to find the title: 100% solution enter 100 solution.
- Use a question mark (?) for truncation (different forms of a root word) and as a multiple character wildcard, either inside or at the end of a search term (e.g., ecumen? retrieves ecumenical and ecumenism). Truncated search terms must be two or more characters long (e.g., KF? not K?).
- Most punctuation marks (hyphens, slashes, periods, etc.) are replaced by spaces. Because spaces are used to divide words, use quotation marks to treat your search term as a phrase when punctuation occurs in the middle of your term (e.g., "U.S.A." or "part-time"). Keyword number searches are especially tricky. Treat punctuation in numbers as word separators and enclose numbers with punctuation in quotation marks in your search query.
- Capitalization does not matter.
- Add limits to filter your search.
- Select the number of items you want to display in your search results Titles List. You can increase the default of 25 results to 50, 75, or 100.
- Search results return up to 10,000 entries for each query.
Keyword (EXPERT)
Keyword (EXPERT) offers a powerful, command-driven search method for finding words or phrases located anywhere in the record. Expert search allows for greater precision by supporting Boolean operators, user-specified nesting, and special index codes. Expert searches also allow more complex combination of multiple terms from one or more fields in a record. Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) may be used with or without parentheses. Many number searches can be entered as either keyword searches (where parts of a number may cross subfields and punctuation marks are treated as word separators) or as left-match searches (where punctuation and subfielding are taken into account).
Search terms … | Finds records containing … |
---|---|
(mars OR venus) AND mission | materials on missions to Mars or Venus |
knam "aldiss brian" | materials by and about Brian Aldiss |
kisn "1094-1304" | ISSN 1094-1304 (Journal of health care marketing) |
kisn 0553377833 | ISBN 0-553-37783-3 (Amazing Colossal Episode Guide); enter the ISBN without hyphens |
knam chaucer and 260b "oxford university" | the name Chaucer anywhere in a record that also contains the publisher Oxford University Press |
k100 shakespeare and ktut spanish | works by Shakespeare translated into Spanish |
kcla gv946 AND 260a london | materials with an LC classification of GV946 published in London |
ksub olympic? AND ksub songs limiting search by: Type of Material: Music Score | printed music of songs used at Olympic Games |
(skey canoes OR skey kayaks) and skey design not skey fiberglass | information about building canoes or kayaks with materials other than fiberglass |
k010 2003556443 | record for LCCN "2003556443" (keyword search) |
010A 980000? | records with LCCNs beginning with "980000" (left-match search) |
Search Tips for Keyword (EXPERT)
- Combine several terms using the Boolean operators AND, OR, or NOT (entered in upper or lower case).
- AND - narrows your search by combining multiple concepts (e.g., mars AND mission)
- OR - broadens your search with related terms for each concept (e.g., ten OR 10)
- NOT - excludes terms from your search (e.g., marketing NOT sales)
Note: use caution when selecting the Boolean NOT operator so you do not inadvertently exclude desired records (e.g., NOT Mexico will remove records containing both Mexico and New Mexico). - If you want to include the words AND, OR, or NOT as search words, you must include them, along with other words, in quotes as a phrase.
- Combine several Boolean operators in a single search statement, using parentheses to group concepts together. For example: (wood? OR forest) AND "resource manage?"
- Restrict search words or phrases to a particular index (or area of the record), by first specifying the appropriate index code followed by your search word or phrase (e.g., ktil five AND kpnc lewis).
- Use quotation marks around queries that contain multiple search terms (for example: KNAM "washington george" and KSUB diaries).
- Search terms, including quoted phrases, are not searched across subfields. Instead index codes/search terms need to be combined using Boolean operators (e.g., KCLA "E169.1" and KCLA "N3745 1975").
- Boolean OR expressions are executed first, followed by expressions using AND or NOT (which are considered equivalent). Processing of equivalent expressions takes place in a left-to-right sequence.
- Use a percent sign (%) as a single character wildcard, either inside or at the end of a search term (e.g., col%r retrieves color, coler, and colur, but not colour). If your search terms contain a percent sign, remove the %. For example, to find the title: 100% solution enter 100 solution.
- Use a question mark (?) for truncation (different forms of a root word) and as a multiple character wildcard, either inside or at the end of a search term (e.g., ecumen? retrieves ecumenical and ecumenism). Truncated search terms must be two or more characters long (e.g., KF? not K?).
- You can use both keyword and left-match index codes in Keyword (EXPERT) searches. Note, however, that while multiple keyword index codes can be combined using Boolean operators, only a single left-match index code can be used in each search. In addition, truncation in Keyword (EXPERT) left-match queries is not automatic.
- Add limits to filter your keyword and left-match searches.