Catalogue help

There are many ways to search the online catalogue.

Performing a simple search

• enter your keyword(s) in the search box by typing them in, or selecting the microphone icon and saying the keywords aloud.
• click the Search icon (magnifying glass) or press the Enter key to quickly find material in the Library's collections.

This will search for all the searched terms in everything available in One Search.

To limit your search to a particular collection, click on the scope name to make an alternative selection.

See the table below for more information about each scope option.

Search scopes in One Search

Searching for a phrase

Use double quotation marks to search for your string of words as a phrase. This will ensure that your searched words are located next to each other in the order specified. Without quotation marks, your search results will contain individual words in the phrase, regardless of whether these words are located next to each other in the order specified.

You can combine both words and phrases in a single search.
For example, to search for global warming as one term, type "global warming" in the search box.

Searching for similar words - OR

You can search for items that contain at least one of the words or phrases you type in the search box. To do so, type OR between the words or phrases.

For example, to search for items with the word Irish or the word Celtic, type irish OR celtic in the search box. Make sure you type the OR or NOT in uppercase.

Note: If you search for words or phrases without specifying OR or NOT, it is assumed that you are searching for all the specified words or phrases.

Excluding words or phrases - NOT

You can exclude items that contain specific words or phrases. To do so, type NOT and then type the word or phrase to exclude.

For example, to search for items with the word Celtic and exclude any of these items with the word Irish, type the following in the search box: celtic NOT irish.

Note: If you search for words or phrases without specifying OR or NOT, the system assumes that you are searching for all the specified words or phrases.

Search using wildcard characters

You can include the following wildcard characters in your searches:

• ?—enter a question mark to replace one character wildcard. For example, type wom?n to search for records that contain the terms woman and women
• *—enter an asterisk at the end of or within a word to replace a number of characters. For example, type cultur* to search for records that contain strings, such as culture, cultural, and culturally.

Grouping terms within a query

You can use parentheses to group terms within a query.

For example, to search for Queensland and either sugar or cane, type the following in the search box Queensland (sugar OR cane).

Natural language search 

This new search type allows you to type your query into the catalogue like you would into Google, and AI will transform it into a structured library query to find the resources to your query.  For example, you can ask "I need peer reviewed articles on Queensland history from 2020 onwards" and the catalogue will create your query with the required filters for you. 

Advanced search

Advanced Search lets you determine which fields to search, how to search for your terms (i.e. contains, (is) exact, starts with), and how to combine your search terms. It also gives you other options for limiting the scope of your search.

Browse search

Use Browse search in the catalogue to return an alphabetical listing of items beginning with the searched term(s). You can select to browse by subject, author, title or call number. Browse search for an author name searches by the author’s surname or an organisation name. To conduct a browse search:

• click BROWSE from the top menu
• select either subject, author, title or Dewey call number from the drop-down menu
• enter your term(s) in the search box
• click the magnifying glass or press Enter key to search.

The results list displays all the items that match your search query. Your results are usually sorted by relevance. To change the sorting to either Relevance, Date newest, Date oldest, Author or Title:

Each item in the list includes:

• Resource type—the icon beside each item and the text above indicates the format such as a book, article, or website
• Title—clicking the title displays more bibliographic information (the full record)
• Author/creator and publication details—the item’s author/creator, publisher and publication date
• Availability—displays information about how to get the item, for example Online Access takes you directly to the item online.

Refining your results

You can refine your search results using a variety of limits on the left-hand side, such as by Resource type, Subject, Date, and Language.

Click on the arrows to expand or collapse the options available.

By clicking on the strike through tick icon that appears when you hover over a facet name you can exclude this from your search results.

You can also lock facets for searches in the current session by clicking on Remember all filters under Refine my results (top left of screen).

From the breif results, click the item's title to get more information about the item.

In the full record view, you can view the following information. The format of the item will determine what you see in each record.

Action icons

On the right hand side of the brief record details, you will see icons that provide various options for sharing or referencing the item:

• Share
  • Permalink provides a permanent link to this record
  • Email allows you to send information about the item to yourself or another email address
  • QR Code allows you to link to a record by taking a photograph of the QR Code image
• Citation allows you to choose from various standard citation styles and copy the text for referencing the item
• Print and export
  • Print provides a printable text summary of the record
  • If you use EasyBib, BibTex, Endnote, RefWorks, or reference manager software that uses RIS format (for example Mendeley or Zotero), you can export the record to your reference manager.
• Citation allows you to choose from various standard citation styles and copy the text for referencing the item
• Bookmark allows you to save the record

Locations

Lists all of the locations where an item is held and allows you to request an item if it is held in storage. Much of the collection material is held in storage.

When you request an item, library staff will retrieve it for you. Delivery times apply.

Note: You need to Log in to your account with your State Library membership to make a request for items in storage. Not a member? Register here.

Services

Lists the  request options available for the item:

• Document supply
• Image order
• Send to my public library

Access online

Lists all of the links to the item if available online.

Some online items have access restricted to library members only. You can access these items by logging in to your account. If you do not have an account, apply for SLQ membership.

To close the full record view, either:

Details

The Full Details section displays the item’s full record and links to further information. You can click on the Author or Subjects links to quickly find related material.

Links

Find links to Trove, table of contents if available, author information in WorldCat, order forms to purchase high resolution copies of copyright free images and the ability to provide feedback on the item.

More like this

You can use the More like this to quickly find related material.

To browse through the list click > or <.

Click on the cover image of the material for the full record view.

Tags

This feature is not available until November 2026.

You can add tags to a record to help you find the item again, or help other people to discover it. The tags can be a word or phrase which provides useful information of the item content. These tags can then be viewed publicly by clicking on TAGS in the main menu or by searching in Advanced Search by selecting User tags from the Any field drop-down menu.

You must be logged in to add the tags. To add a tag:

• click ADD YOUR OWN TAGS (you will be prompted to log in if you haven’t already done so)
• type in your term and press the Enter key
• the tag is displayed in the record, and can be searched by anyone using One Search.

Explore (Syndetics Unbound)

You can view further information about the item such as a summary, author information, book excerpts and reviews. This information comes from outside sources. It is not available in all records.

Note: To close the full record view, either:

• click on the teal  on the left of the full record where the X is, or
• press the ESC key.

Note: If you are offsite, you must be logged in with your State Library of Queensland membership to use this feature. If you are onsite, you do not have to log in.

The generative AI tool Research Assistant allows you to perform a search using natural language. Instead of searching keywords on your topic, such as sugar cane AND queensland AND economy you can ask a question, e.g. How important is sugar cane to the Queensland economy? 

You can refine your search by resource type (books, journal articles and peer-reviewed) and date (last 5 years, last 10 years, or a custom date range) 

The tool will provide you with 5 relevant sources and generate an overview of your question by analysing the description and abstracts of the sources.  In addition, it will provide suggested research questions to further explore your topic. 

How does it work? 

• The tool will turn your natural language question into a complex boolean query using a large language model (LLM).  
• The boolean query is sent to the Central Discovery Index (a massive index of articles and other documents) to perform the search. 
• The top results are returned (a maximum of 30), with the top 5 of these sent to the LLM to create the overview with inline references. 
• The overview response and the sources are displayed to you. 
• The LLM will only cite what is found in a search, so it does not make up non-existent citations as can occur with other LLMs such as ChatGPT. 
• The actions provided allow you to send a thumbs up or a thumbs down rating with feedback to the vendor, copy the information to your clipboard or try again. You may receive a slightly different answer due to the nature of LLM. 
• The 5 sources are displayed with their abstracts and links to any full text availability. Not all of these sources are available to State Library members.
• If you click on View more results from your library search, this takes you to a One Search page with more results. 
• You can also see the boolean query that was used for your search. 
• If you are logged in, the Research Assistant will save your last 200 queries so that you can come back to them.  

What doesn’t it include? 

The Research tool does not include State Library local collections – books, original materials, family history indexes. Anything in the State Library Collections, State Library Digital Collections or State Library family history index search scopes are not included. 

Only sources that you get from an ‘Articles and more’ search are included. Excluded are the following sources: 

• News content – no news articles in ProQuest 
• Collections from JSTOR, Elsevier, APA, DataCite, Kogan Page, and Conde Nast 
• Databases that are not free to search without a library subscription e.g. Web of Science 

Keep in mind 

• As a summarisation tool, it is useful for quick searches but should not be used for comprehensive research. 
• The overview is based on 5 sources it determines to be relevant rather than based on objective evaluation methods so it may miss sources that are important to your topic.  
• The overviews may also miss content contained in the full text of articles as only the description and abstracts are used. 
• The LLM may misinterpret the information in the abstracts and descriptions sourced especially with dates, so it is important check the accuracy of the responses provided.  
• Consider that biases that are present in research literature can lead to a biased response.  

Risks and privacy 

• Your input is not stored by the LLM nor is it used to train the LLM. 
• The vendor’s strict data privacy policies are adhered to.  
• All analytics and user feedback data are aggregated and anonymised. 

You can sign into the catalogue using the person icon located on the top right of the screen, or from within a catalogue record.

When you are signed in, you can request collection items from onsite repositories, save searches, and organise your favourite records.

Not a member? Register here.

Why should I log in

When you log into your account, you're able to:

• request items
• renew your loans
• add items and searches to My Favourites - you can save items from your results to My Favourites or save your searches to use them at another time
• set alerts - you can request an email notification when there are new items answering your search criteria.

To login to your library account:

• click on the person icon in the top right-hand corner
• enter your State Library username and password
• click on your initials
• click on My library activity

You can check the status of your requests and renew your loans.

Note: Remember to sign out so that your searches remain private and your personal settings and basket are not accessible by anyone else.

Checking your loans and requests

Login to your account.

• To see the full list of your loans, click on your initials, then click My library activity.
• To see the full list of your requests, click on your initials, then click My library activity.
• To see the full list of your saved items, click on your initials, then click Saved records.
• To see the full list of your saved items, click on your initials, then click Search history
• To see the full list of your saved searches, click on your initials, then click My library activity, then saved searches on the left hand side.

Saving items to Saved records

Click the bookmark icon next to a title to add to Saved records.

Note: You must sign in to save items in Saved records for future sessions.

Removing items from Saved records

Click the bookmark icon next to a title to remove from My Favourites.

Add tags to your saved records

You can organise your pinned items into groups using Labels, which can then be accessed for future use. You can add multiple labels to an item.

To add tags to your saved records:

• click on the Add new label link 
• add a new tag or select pne of your existing tags
• click Apply

You can access your items in each label by clicking on the labels listed on the right-hand side.

What is a query?

A query is a word or phrase you specify in the search box to find information. You can do the following with queries:

• view the current session's queries and results
• save a query from the current session to use it later
• set alerts on your saved queries to have them run automatically at scheduled times to provide you with updated results from queries.

Viewing and saving queries

If you are signed in, you can save a query by clicking Save and Export All Results, then selecting Save query.

To access your saved session queries:

• click on your initials on the top right corner
• click My library activity

Under My library activity, you will find:

• a list of all the queries that you have performed in the current session (under Search history).
• a list of all the queries and alerts that you have saved (under Saved searches)

You can run a saved query by clicking on the search term in the list, or you can set an alert.

Note: If you are not signed in, your search history is only available during the current session.

What is an alert?

An alert sends you an email when there are new items in One Search that match your search criteria.

To create an alert, first save a query. A green banner will appear above your search results. Click on click here to create an alert. Notifications will be sent to the email address linked to your account.

State Library is committed to continuously improving your experience with One Search. We invite you to share your thoughts, whether it's a compliment, a suggestion, or a concern. Your input helps us enhance our services to better meet your needs.

If you require support with your research, help navigating the catalogue, or have encountered a technical issue, our Ask a Librarian service is available to assist you.