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Navigating the WIPO Knowledge Repository (TIND)

A guide developed to assist users in effectively locating materials within the WKC using the Knowledge Repository

And, Or, Not

Boolean Operators

Boolean Operators are used to connect and define the relationship between your search terms. When searching, you can use Boolean operators to either narrow or broaden your record sets. The three Boolean operators are AND, OR and NOT.

Operator

Explanation

AND

Searches for results that include both the term before and the term after the operator. For example: the query particle AND physics returns all records that contain both the word particle and the word physics. The query author:einstein AND author:feynman returns all records that contain both authors in the record.

OR

Searches for results that include either the term before or the term after the operator (or both). For example: the query particle OR physics returns all records that contain either the word particle or the word physics (or both). The query author:einstein OR author:feynman returns all records that have either einstein or feynman listed as author (or both).

NOT

Searches for results that do not include the term after the operator. For example the query NOT Einstein returns all records that do not contain the word Einstein. The query author:einstein NOT author:feynman returns all records that contain the author einstein but not the author feynman. If a record has both authors, it will be excluded from the results.

Case sensitive: the Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are only recognized if written in uppercase. This behavior is intended to avoid problems when searching for records such as with the title "The Fox and The Crow".

Combining Boolean operators

The search engine combines operator sequentially. Below are two examples to help understand the logic of combining operators.

Example 1: the query Einstein AND Physics OR Universe  is equivalent to doing two queries:

  • Query 1: Einstein AND Physics
  • Query 2: Universe

If a record has metadata that satisfies one of the above queries, it will show in the results list.

Example 2: the query Physics OR Universe AND Einstein is equivalent to doing two queries:

  • Query 1: Physics AND Einstein
  • Query 2: Universe AND Einstein

If a record has metadata that satisfies one of the above queries, it will show in the results list.

Multiple Fields

Building queries within an index: when searching for e.g. multiple subjects or collections, the following syntax must be applied:  subject:"Engineering" AND subject:"Physics" . This query retrieves records with at least one subject containing  the word engineering and at least one containing the word physics, as well as records with both terms appearing in a single subject. Please note that the following syntax would NOT provide you with results that have both subjects.  rather, it would look for records that have a single subject called "Engineering Physics": subject:"Engineering AND Physics".