Calendar of Events Searching Documentation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Keyword Searching
3. Searching by Location
4. Searching by Month
5. Searching by Time of Day
6. Searching by Type of Activity

The Calendar of Events database contains information on events occurring throughout the Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library system. Events occurring at the Main library as well as all branches are included.

Access to events in this database is possible through several different fields, the location, month, time of Day, type of event and a broad keyword search. A record must match all fields on the search form before it will appear in the results. This makes it important to avoid filling in fields with data that is too narrow or too broad. Search strings that are too narrow will produce no results. Search strings that are too broad will produce a list with too many results to sort through. Users will probably find a mixture of searching by location/month or keyword the most useful for their needs.

Information on how to search each field is below:

Search strings can include the AND, OR, NOT operators. Using the AND operator between two terms will require that both search terms appear in the record. For example, searching by the phrase 'computer AND internet' will select all events with both the word 'computer' and 'internet' in them. The OR operator will select records with either search term in them, so 'computer OR internet' will select records with either 'computer' or 'internet' in them. Commas may be used in place of the OR operator in search strings. The NOT operator disqualifies records that contain the word following the operator. For example, 'computer NOT internet' will disqualify any event record that contains the word 'internet' anywhere in any of the major text fields.

You can also use parentheses and question marks within your search string. Using parentheses and quotations within your search clarifies the order in which the search should be evaulated. Search strings within () parentheses are treated like a single unit and evaluated first. Search terms outside the parentheses are then evaluated against the results of those inside the parentheses. Quoted words or phrases are searched for in exactly the form you provide them in. This helps resolve problems with words like 'and, or, not' that you don't want to use as an operator. For example, without quotes the search string "war and peace" would be evaluated as a request for events with both the word 'War' and 'Peace' the them. With quotes it would be evaluated as a single phrase which just happens to include the word 'and' in it.

The keyword search field can be searched using two wildcards characters. The star "*" character can be used as a replacement for any number of additional characters. For example, a search for '*Beth*' would find any of the following: 'Elizabeth', 'Beth' or 'Bethany'. You can also use the "?" character within search strings. This character can only replace a single character. For example, "wom?n" would select records with either "woman" or "women" in the record.

Finally, unless you'd like to search for records in exact case-sensitive format, you should always enter your searches in all uppercase or all lowercase format. If you uppercase the first letter of any word in your search statement, it will be taken as though you require that first letter to be uppercased before being selected.

Searching by Location

If you know that you only want to attend events at a specific branch, choose that branch from the Location drop-down box. You can also choose to see events occurring at several branches in the same basic geographic area. For example, if you only want to see events at branches located to the south of Dayton, choose 'All southern branches' from this drop-down list. A table explaining which branches are covered by these broader categories is below:

Some people can only attend events during certain times of the day. Use the Time of Day drop-down box to filter your results to only those events occurring during times when you are available. A list of hours included in each grouping is below:

If you only want to see events targeted toward a specific audience, such as children, teens or adults, you can use the Type of Activity drop-down box to filter events down to that group. This drop-down is also used to filter events to regularly scheduled programs, such as internet classes or book discussions.