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Welcome to the Baltimore County Public Library.
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Select a link from the following menu to browse the main pages of our site:

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Select a link from the following menu to access site services:

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Search Our Site


All Words Exact Phrase Any Words


Site Search Help

How To Search: Type words into the entry box that you want to search for, then select the search button.

If your search produced either incorrect or no results, try using a plural or non-plural variation of the search terms. For example, if you searched for 'baseball players', try 'baseball player' instead.

All Words:
Type one or more words and then select the search button to find all of the words. Or, you can use Booleans (see below). [All Words] is the default setting.

Exact Phrase: "..."
You can search for exact phrases by surrounding them in double quotes. Or, you can just type the words and select [Exact Phrase]. Punctuation must be the same in order to be found between words, for example: "Smith, John"

Any Word:
Type one or more words and select [Any Words] to find any of the words.

Boolean Operators: + -
Use + in front of each word or a quoted phrase that you require.
Use - in front of each word that you want to exclude.

Boolean Expressions: AND OR NOT ( )
Use AND, OR, NOT, (, and ) to form a Boolean expression. AND requires, OR allows, NOT excludes.
Use double quotes to protect the words "and", "or", or "not" in a phrase.

Examples:
Query Gets the documents with
library card 'library' or 'card' or both
"library card" the phrase 'library card'
+library +card 'library' and 'card'
+library -card 'library' but not 'card'
+copies -"tax forms" 'copies' but not 'tax forms'
(library OR card) AND NOT copies 'library' or 'card', and without 'copies'

Capitalization doesn't matter. The ranked results will come from a total match on the words and phrases which you supply, so try to think of several specific terms for your topic and spell them correctly. It may help to include important plurals and derived words too, such as [address addresses contact contacting information].

Note: BCPL uses the Picosearch hosting service. Picosearch provided most of the help content used to design this web page.

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This page is provided by the Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, Maryland USA.
The text version of this page was last revised on 28 March 2008.
The graphics version of this page was last revised on 28 March 2008.
You are welcome to provide feedback.