Academic Video Online (AVON): How to Search

If you know what you’re looking for, start with the Search bar at the top of your screen. Here you can search by keyword.

Then, sort by (right side of window):

• Relevance
• Newest first
• Oldest first

The search results page will automatically display filters to help you refine and narrow your search further. Type “Mozart” into a search bar and click on the filter button where you will see music-oriented filters—such as work/opus, performer, instrument played, and time period. (Results will vary depending on the collection and type of search being conducted.)

Filter by:

• Subject
• Publisher
• Person
• Content Type
• Language
• Release Date

Would you like to see all of videos by a certain provider or publisher? Here are a few ways to do this:

• Direct Links to Selected Publishers in Academic Video Online

This document has links you can click on or copy and paste to go to a list of videos from selected publishers.

• Filter by Publisher

This Quick Guide shows you how to filter by publisher in Academic Video Online.

Click on a link below to go directly to a Subject in Academic Video Online.

• American History

• Anthropology

• Art & Architecture

• Asian Studies

• Automotive Technology

• Biology

• Black Studies

• BoClips

• Business

• Chemistry

• Communication Studies

• Computer Science

• Counseling

• Criminal Justice

• Cultural Anthropology

• Dance

• Diversity

• Economics

• Education

• Engineering

• Environmental Studies

• Equity

• Film

• Global Issues

• Inclusion

• Indigenous Studies

• LGBT

• Literature

• Music and Performing Arts

• Native American Studies

• Politics and Current Affairs

• Psychology

• Rehabilitation Therapy

• Religion

• Sociology

• Sports Medicine

• Student Success

• Theatre

• Women's Studies

• World History

• Writing

The Alexander Street Video Platform does not have an advanced search form, but you can use advanced search syntax.

To understand a bit about how searching on the Video Platform works, consider the following things:

• if using simple keywords in the search box, you can expect complete matches to rank higher than partial matches; title hits to rank higher than other fields; and discounting of common words that may explode a search
• advanced search syntax as shown below is applied verbatim (in order, as entered)

Searching strategies below can be used on combination with each other.

Double Quotes (restriction of phrase matching):  Using quotes around a search term will limit the results to those words being found directly next to each other in the results. Searching will take place anywhere in the title, description, transcript, and metadata.

• Hopi Indians (more results since the search executes for both words together then individually) vs. "Hopi Indians" (less results as it is restricting the search to the phrase)

AND, OR, NEAR, +, - (Boolean operators):  1. operators must be in CAPS; 2. plus and minus signs must have a space before them.

• Hopi OR Indians (looking for either term in the search will yield many, many results and videos with both words will rank higher in the search relevancy)
• Hopi AND Indians (looks for both words and can often have the same result as using double quotes)
• Hopi NEAR Indians (looks for the terms within the same field so more results than double quotes but less than just as the keywords of Hopi Indians) ​
  • ​Hopi NEAR/5 Indians (looks for the search terms being 5 words away from each other)
• American +Indians -Hopi (this is looking for American Indians but not Hopi)
• "American Indians" -Hopi (an even narrower search looking at "American Indians" as one term)

Field Qualifications:  the search box can be used to directly narrow a search to a particular field.  There is NO space between the colon and the search term.

• title:"Hopi Indians" 
• producer:"Ann Carroll"
• subject:anthropology
• publisher:"BBC Worldwide"
• historical_event:holocaust
• document_type:documentary
• release_date:1960
• series:food

Truncation and Wild Card:  asterisks and question marks can be used to offer options when you want to expand a search for word ending variability

• cultur* (results in any video with a word starting with cultur, so culture, cultured, cultural, culturization, etc)
• cultur? (results in any video with a word cultur and 0 to 1 letter after)

Range Queries:  you can use a range of dates to narrow down searches prior to waiting for search results to filter

• release_date:[1960-1970]
• release_date:>2017 (greater than 2017; less than can be used instead of >)
• release_date:>=2017 (greater than or equal to 2017; less than can be used instead of >)