In this chapter, Melissa A. Wong introduces essential search strategies that every librarian should have in their toolkit including field searching, controlled vocabulary, Boolean operators, proximity searching, truncation and wildcards, and citation chaining. Online databases offer sophisticated search options and Wong looks at the structure of databases to help librarians understand how to refine and improve searches, leading to more confident guidance for helping patrons with their searches. This chapter provides information to create an "understanding of how databases are structured, the role of metadata in supporting information access, and the (often invisible) function of search algorithms" (p. 319).
