Quick Start
1.From the Welcome screen or any Athena menu, click the Search quick start button.
2. If Quick Search is your library’s default search method, you will see the Quick Search screen.

If Quick Search is not your library’s default search method, you will see one of the other search screens. Click the Quick Search tab. You will see the Quick Search screen.

3. Type the word or phrase that you want to use as a search term.
4. Click Search.

Starting Quick Search
1. From the Welcome screen or any Athena menu, click the Search quick start button.
2. If Quick Search is your library’s default search method, you will see the Quick Search screen.

If Quick Search is not your library’s default search method, you will see one of the other search screens. Click the Quick Search tab. You will see the Quick Search screen. It has these buttons and tabs:

Button Description
Search Enter any valid search term. Then click Search to perform a broad all-category search. Athena will locate any items related to this search term.
Author Enter an author’s entire last name or the first part of the last name. Then click Author to have Athena locate any items written by someone with this name.
Title Enter an entire title, the first part of a title, any word or partial word in a title. Then click Title to have Athena locate any items with this search term in the title.
Subject Enter a subject. Then click Subject to have Athena locate any items with this search term in the subject.
Visual Click Visual to perform a Visual Search.

Tab Description
Visual Search Click this to switch to Visual Search.
Advanced Search Click this to switch to Advanced Search.
Change Collection Click this to search a collection other than the active collection.
Menu Click this to return to the most recently used Athena menu.

Performing a Quick Search
A search term is a word or phrase, or part of a word or phrase, that you use to tell Athena what to search for. It can be an author’s name, a complete or partial title, a subject, a publisher, or any other piece of information in Athena’s bibliographic or copy information. In general, a search term must be two or more characters long.

When you first start Quick Search, the stoplight on the Search button is red. This indicates that Athena cannot begin a search until you enter a search term.

To perform an all-category search:
1. If you have not already done so, start Quick Search. For instructions, see Starting Quick Search.

2. Type a search term in the box at the top of the screen. The stoplight on the Search button will turn green, indicating that Athena is ready to start the search.

3. Click Search or press Enter.

To perform an Author, Title, or Subject search:

1. If you have not already done so, start Quick Search. For instructions, see Starting Quick Search.
2. Type a search term in the box at the top of the screen.
3. Depending on the type of search you wish to perform, click Author, Title, or Subject.

To return to the Quick Search screen after performing a search:

Click the Search tab at the bottom of the Search Results screen.

Tip
To limit a search to something other than author, title or subject, use Athena’s Advanced Search feature.

Searching on a Phrase
A search term does not have to be a single word; it can be an entire phrase. When searching on a phrase, Athena can perform two types of searches:

Extended phrase search
Athena interprets the words within a phrase as if they are separate search terms joined by the Boolean operator AND. For example, the search term used cars is interpreted as used AND cars. This means that before Athena will find a title, its catalog information must contain every word that is present in the search term. However, the words do not need to appear in any specific order. Furthermore, the words can be separated by additional words that are not even in your search term. For example, the search term used cars might yield used compact cars, used passenger cars, cars that have been used, cars used, etc.

Non-extended phrase search
Athena interprets the entire phrase as a single search term. This means that word order within the search term is important. Furthermore, before Athena will find a title, its catalog information must contain the complete phrase that you used as the search term. For example, the search term used cars will yield only those items with the entire phrase used cars in their catalog information. Athena will not locate items containing phrases such as cars used, used compact cars, used passenger cars, cars that have been used, etc. Also, in a non-extended phrase search, Athena will not find embedded phrases. In other words, before Athena will locate an item, it must have your search term at the beginning of the title, subject, author, or other piece of catalog information.

The type of phrase searching Athena uses depends on how the Extended Phrase Searching parameter is set.

If the Extended Phrase Searching parameter is set to Never, Athena will perform only non-extended phrase searching.

If the Extended Phrase Searching parameter is set to Always, Athena will perform only extended phrase searching.

If the Extended Phrase Searching parameter is set to Automatic, Athena will first perform a non-extended phrase search. If it does not find any matches, it will perform an extended phrase search.

Changing Collections
Most libraries are organized into distinct groups of materials called collections. The collection that Athena is working with at any one time is called the active collection. The name of the active collection is always displayed at the top of the screen.

Note: Athena searches only the active collection. To find relevant items in another collection, you must change to that collection before searching.

To change the active collection:
1. From the Quick Search or Advanced Search screen, click the Change Collection tab. Athena will display a list of collections.
2. Click the collection that you want to make active.
3. Click Select.