GLOSSARY. Boolean Operators

George Boole
1815 - 1864

Boolean Operators

George Boole was an English mathematician who helped establish the modern field of mathematics called symbolic logic.

Boolean logic uses words called operators. The three main operators are: AND, OR and NOT. Boolean logic is used in searching to locate only those items matching your search criteria.

The AND operator can be used to combine different concepts in a search.

This will NARROW one's search results because each concept (or term) must be present in the record in order for it to be retrieved:

AND operator

The OR operator EXPANDS search results. The database retrieves any records having at least one of the terms in a record, and records where some or all of the terms are found together:

Close window