Academic Commons is Columbia University’s digital repository where faculty, students, and staff of Columbia and its affiliate institutions can deposit the results of their scholarly work and research. Content in Academic Commons is freely available to the public.
Search tips
Enter keywords and select All Fields, Title, Author, or Subject![](https://blogs.cul.columbia.edu/cliobeta/files/2012/03/Screen-shot-2012-03-26-at-6.40.20-AM.png)
![](https://blogs.cul.columbia.edu/cliobeta/files/2012/03/Screen-shot-2012-03-26-at-6.40.20-AM.png)
Enclose adjacent terms in quotes: “civil engineering”
Stemming expands search terms to include variants. A search for chemical will also find chemicals and chemically.
Results are listed by relevance; the algorithm gives preference to terms that are in the title, and near each other.
Searches of two words will match on both terms. Searches for more than two words may include records matching on all but one of the words, with the highest relevance given to matches on all terms.
Use a plus (+) before a term to require it: +africa +malaria +economics will find only records that include all three terms.
Options to refine your search are listed on the left side of the results list, with each heading followed by the number of records within with that heading.Options include the ability to limit by:
- Author
- Department
- Subject
- Publication Date
- Content Type – includes articles, working papers, technical reports, dissertations, book chapters, undergraduate theses, blog posts, and works of fiction
- Series