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How do I search through resources?

Two search modes are available. The simple search will perform a standard search on the metadata of all the works in our collections. If you want to refine your search, you can do an advanced search, which looks through our full published texts. You can focus your results with the many filters available.

You have permanent access to the search bar at the top right.

Search by keyword

By default the search takes into account all the terms entered.

Eg.: Rimbaud Verlaine will search for Rimbaud AND Verlaine

Search operators

Place a ~ or a – in front of a term to render it optional or exclude it entirely.

Eg.: ~Rimbaud ~Verlaine will search for Rimbaud OR Verlaine

Eg.: Rimbaud Verlaine -Corbière will search for Rimbaud AND Verlaine WITHOUT Corbière

Connect terms in a sub-expression with the help of parentheses. It is possible to stack sub-expressions.

Eg.: ~(Rimbaud Verlaine) ~(Verlaine Corbière) will search for Rimbaud WITH Verlaine OR Verlaine WITH Corbière

Truncation

Use an asterisk (*) to replace a number of characters at the end of a word.

Eg.: histo* will search for histoire, histoires, historique, etc.

Literal search

Search for an exact expression made up of a number of words with the help of double quotation marks ("…").

Eg.: "au bonheur des dames"

Full text search

The following information applies only to the "Full Text" search field in the advanced search.

Use the question mark (?) to replace a character.
Eg.: déb?t

To do a fuzzy search, add the tilde sign (~) at the end of the word.
Eg.: tête~

For a proximity search: add the tilde sign (~) followed by a number at the end of an expression in quotation marks.
Eg.: "soleil satan"~10 searches for the words soleil and satan at a distance of 10 words maximum.