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HathiTrust Digital Library

Searching the Collections

HathiTrust offers two ways to search their content, each with a basic and advanced option.

Catalog Search

A Catalog Search searches general information about the book, like the title, author and publisher, as well as subject terms. It does not search the full text of the book.

To access the advanced search option, click Advanced Catalog Search.  Advanced search allows you to search multiple fields at once.  You can also limit your results by full-text availability, publication year, language, and original format.

Full-text Search

A Full-text Search searches everything covered in the catalog search, plus the full content of the book.

To access the advanced search option, click Advanced Full-text Search.  Advanced search allows you to search for keywords in the full text and in specific parts of a book such as the title, author, or series.  You can also limit your results by full-text availability, publication year, language, and original format.

General search tips

  • Use quotation marks to look for an exact phrase. Example: "Grand Canyon"
  • Use Boolean operators (and, or, not) to make your search more specific.
    • "AND" combines search terms. For example, a search for "'Grand Canyon' AND rafting" finds books that have both the phrase Grand Canyon and the word rafting.
    • "OR" looks for either search term. For example, a search for "rafting or boating" finds books that have either the word rafting, the word boating, or both.
    • "NOT" excludes a search term. For example, a search for "'White Russian' NOT 'cocktail'" finds books that contain the phrase White Russian but not the word cocktail.

Using ALICE and ArticlesPlus

If Ohio University Libraries owns a physical item that is out of copyright and also available digitally in the HathiTrust Digital Library, a full text version can be found in ALICE or in ArticlesPlus. Adding the word 'hathitrust' to a keyword search in ALICE or ArticlesPlus will give results for the full text digital copies of physical items in Ohio University Libraries' collections.