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Contents

Introduction to PrattCat
Search Tips

Links

Ask-A-Librarian
Research Guides
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Introduction to PrattCat

PrattCat is the Libraries’ online catalog of books, periodicals, audiovisual equipment, and other library materials.  Use the Advanced Search to limit by item type, location, language or to combine multiple pieces of information.

For example:

In location, limit to Manhattan to be sure the items are in the same library you are.

In material type, select DVD, VHS or 16M for film, or use to limit to theses, maps, artists’ books, popups or sheet music.

Use advanced search to search by both author and title, to reduce the number of hits.  For example, author ‘Brown’ and title ‘Buttoned’ immediately give the work ‘Buttoned’ by Emily K. Brown, but searching author Brown alone gives 655 results.

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Search Tips

Phrases
Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks.
Example: "office design"

Wildcards
Words may be truncated using an asterisk.
Example: architect* retrieves architect, architects, architecture, architectural, and architectonic.

Boolean
Use AND between search terms to retrieve results with ALL of the terms. Retrieves fewer results.
Example: masonry and chimneys
Use OR between search terms to retrieve results with AT LEAST ONE but not necessarily all of the terms. Retrieves more results.
Example: (alaska or canada) and (adventure and not vacation)

Proximity
Use "near" to specify words close to each other, in any order.
Example: california near university Fields To search only within a specified field, select from the drop-down menu next to your search term(s).
Example: shakespeare works

Other Limits
To search only within a specified field, select from the drop-down menu next to your search term(s).
Example: shakespeare works

Additional limits are available based upon location, material type, language, and publication information.
Example: MMS Brooklyn Library
Example: DVD
Example: French

Grouping
Keyword search results are usually grouped by relevance to bring the most likely titles to the top of the list. Each group represents a similar level of relevance and results are sorted within the group by date or title. To get an ungrouped result set, use boolean operators to form a complex query.

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