How to search for books

Search guidelines

In general, the more information you enter into the search fields the fewer matches you will receive. More is not necessarily better. The most important thing to remember about entering your search criteria is that AbeBooks searches for books that match all the words you enter. In order to maximize your chances of a match, you should enter a minimum amount of information. You can always refine your search further if you are receiving too many matches. The key is to start small.

  • AbeBooks has a Boolean search system. To learn more about Boolean search please view our Boolean help page.
  • Use the "tilde symbol" (~), as a "not" to refine your search results
  • Search for book attributes using the correct bookseller terminology and codes located here.

Search hints:

  • More is not better; our system searches for books matching all the words you enter.
  • Match totals shown are only an estimate.
  • Our search engine will only find books matching the exact spelling in your request.
  • Keywords are created by the individual booksellers and not by AbeBooks.
  • The precision of an attribute’s extraction in a book search depends upon the following limiting factors:
    • AbeBooks is multilingual so attributes are searched in multiple languages.
    • Conditions are kept loose to be reasonably inclusive.
    • Typographical and logical errors in bookseller’s listing descriptions can cause the listing to be errantly returned in your search results.

Please confirm any details, characteristics or other attributes of a listing not explicitly stated in the description with the bookseller. You can contact a bookseller from the [Ask Seller a Question] link found on the book details page.

Sorting search results

Using the "Sort By" drop down menu in the top right corner of the Search Results page, you can sort your search results by:

  • Author/Artist A-Z
  • Author/Artist Z-A
  • Highest Price
  • Lowest Price
  • Lowest Total Price
  • Most Recently Listed
  • Relevance
  • Seller Rating
  • Title A-Z
  • Title Z-A
  • Year of Publication Ascending
  • Year of Publication Descending

Searching a specific bookseller's inventory

You can search a specific bookseller's inventory from the search results page, the book details page, or the bookseller storefront page. Each of these links will take you to an Advanced Search page for that particular bookseller.

  • Search Results: Click the seller's name to visit their storefront to search their inventory
  • Book Details: Click "List this Seller's Books"
  • Seller storefront: Click "View this seller's items"

Specific searching with Boolean

AbeBooks' Boolean search allows you to perform very specific searches. It's based on a mathematical logic but is actually simple to use. Boolean logic helps you to expand or restrict your search. Boolean has three so-called operators (commands to our search engine) – NOT, AND, then OR.

NOT is given the highest precedence in Boolean, followed by AND, and then OR. If you have two Boolean operators in one search, the search will use the order of precedence.

  • Always remember to turn on Boolean first by clicking the radio button.
  • You always need a positive term to precede any operator in the field when using Boolean. This is the most common error. For instance, after putting J.K. Rowling into the author field, a title search would be – The Philosopher's Stone NOT The Sorcerer's Stone
  • Be aware quotation marks around search terms will indicate an exact phrase and ensure even stricter searching. The terms entered will be matched exactly. This can be good and bad. An "Ernest Hemingway" author search will yield exactly that and not any books where the author is listed as Hemingway, Ernest.
  • The keyword field is extremely useful for Boolean searching because it searches all fields for data (author, title, publisher, description etc).

Examples of Common Boolean Searches:

  1. Exclude ex-library copies using the NOT operator. Enter a positive term(s) into keyword field eg J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit NOT ex-library NOT ex-libris.
  2. Exclude a certain publisher using the NOT operator. Enter a positive term into publisher field eg Bloomsbury and then enter NOT Scholastic.
  3. Two books in one search using the OR operator. Complete author field (eg Ian McEwan) and then complete title field Atonement OR Amsterdam. Two separate searches will occur but your results will combine both sets of results.
  4. Expand a search with multiple OR operators. You want books about war. Enter into keyword field war OR military OR battle OR warfare OR combat.

Invalid Searches include:

  • Keyword search (lacks negative term): Cat not
  • Author search (cannot have successive operators without a search term): Stephen or not King
  • Title search (lacks positive term): not The Shining

Be careful when using Boolean and searching for titles/keywords containing 'and', 'or' & 'not'. For instance, searching for Hemingway's famous books, To Have And Have Not and The Old Man And The Sea, can cause problems as Boolean will recognize the operator words contained within the titles. Avoid this problem by putting the titles in quotation marks – "To Have And Have Not" OR "The Old Man And the Sea" - you will be presented with both titles in a combined set of results.

To group a series of words together, use parentheses which will string a series of terms together and properly categorize your results. For example a keyword search of (Khaled Hosseini NOT "A Thousand Splendid Suns") OR (Ernest Hemingway NOT "Old Man and the Sea"). Parentheses are also be used to force the order of processing.

Remember to complete quotes and brackets with the corresponding mark.

Wildcard Searching

Boolean offers single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms. A wildcard character is a substitute for any character or characters in a word. To perform a single character wildcard search use the ? symbol, ie - te?t

A search for te?t will yield results such as test, text, tent. A search for test??? will yield results such as testing, testers, testify.

To perform a multiple character wildcard search, use the * symbol ie test* (Note that multiple character wildcard searches look for zero or more characters.) A search for test*would yield results such as test, testing, tested, testament, tester.

You can also use the multiple character wildcard searches in the middle of a term – ie tran*t

A search for tran*t will yield results such as transport, transcript, transit, transplant.

Fuzzy Searching

Fuzzy search displays results for terms similar to the original search to two character edits. For instance, a fuzzy search for 'history' will also show results for historic, historie, histoire, story, hickory.

A character edit can be a deletion, an insertion or a replacement.

Fuzzy searches are conducted by placing a ~ symbol to the right of your search term ie history~

If you add the number 1 alongside the ~ symbol (ie history~1), it will show results differing by a single character edit.

Proximity Searching

Boolean also offers the ability to search for words that are within a specific distance of each other.

To conduct a proximity search, place the search terms within quotes and then add a ~ symbol to the right of the search terms followed by a number to indicate the maximum required distance – ie "house dog"~2

A search for "house dog"~2 will yield results such as Fire House Dog and Dog House Blues and Teach Your Dog House Training.

Is spelling important?

AbeBooks finds books matching the exact spelling in your request. Capitalization won't affect the search results, but apostrophes will, so make sure to use them when you're looking for a title that includes them.

How to search using keywords

When you use the keyword field to search, you are searching the title, author and description fields. Therefore, when using keywords, it is a good idea to be as specific as possible.

How to search by price

You can limit your search for items within a specific price range. To search by price, enter the price range in the "Min" and "Max"' fields on the Advanced Search page.

How to search for something other than books

Use the keyword field in a search form to find items other than books. Examples include: vinyl, prints, art, ephemera and more.

Book terminology

A list of these attributes and their various abbreviation codes are listed here and an explanation of how AbeBooks determines first editions is available here. AbeBooks uses certain attributes, or codes, to describe the condition of a book.

Start to search

To search on AbeBooks for used, rare and out-of-print books, use the search box on the homepage, or click "Advanced Search" in the red banner at the top of the page. Enter the book information you are looking for (e.g., "TITLE: Unbearable lightness of being" and/or "AUTHOR: Milan Kundera") and click on the [search] button.

A search by publisher can include the name of a publishing company, the place the book was published and even the year of publication. To search by date, type in a particular year, for example "1965", or you can use a wild card and search for all the books published in the 1960's by typing "196*".

The "keyword" field is used to enter search words that may relate to the book or item you are seeking. One of the most important things to remember about keywords is they are generated by the individual booksellers and not by AbeBooks. It is up to the bookseller to determine keywords that will be attached to the books. This means occasionally books have no keywords attached to them. This must be kept in mind when using the keyword field for your book searching.

You can also search by ISBN. In the field provided, simply enter the ISBN, either with or without dashes or spaces.

Examples of acceptable ISBN entries:
0670451932
0-670-45193-2
0 670 45193 2

If a bookseller has provided an accurate ISBN with their book listing, it will be displayed at the end of the book description. Also, AbeBooks attempts to match ISBNs to books that do not have one entered by the bookseller. We cannot guarantee that this will be an exact ISBN match. Please read the book description carefully to ensure that it is the correct item before placing the order.

AbeBooks policy

We have developed the following policies as an extension of the AbeBooks Program Guide. These policies further explain our Code of Conduct and lay out what will happen if there is an infringement of a policy.

Copyright

This section covers bookseller item descriptions and photocopied materials (e.g. dust wrappers and excerpts).

We consider any work produced in a tangible form of expression and associated with an original authorship to be covered by copyright.

If the original author, holder of copyright or the publisher notifies AbeBooks of a copyright infringement, we will take the following action:

Step 1: We will contact the bookseller and request the listing be removed from the AbeBooks Web sites within a specified time period.
Step 2: If the bookseller does not remove the listing within the time period, we will remove the listing.
Step 3: If the bookseller uploads the listing back onto the AbeBooks Web sites after being contacted by us to remove the listing, we will remove the bookseller from AbeBooks.

If you are the original author of the work or are the holder of copyright for the work, and if you wish to contact us regarding a copyright infringement, please contact us here, or mail us a note to the following address:

AbeBooks Inc.
Suite 500 - 655 Tyee Road
Victoria, BC V9A 6X5
Canada

For more information on copyright in your country, please contact your Copyright Office. (It may be called Patent and Trademark Office.)

Promotional items

Promotional items are goods that are distributed, free of charge, for the purpose of advertising an event or good, such as a movie, book, etc…. Promotional items can include advanced reading copies, unproofed copies, posters, etc. The publisher, author or producer of the event or good usually distributes these items.

Promotional items can be restricted from sale. If the distributor of the promotional item notifies AbeBooks of an infringement of this restriction, we will take the following action:

Step 1: We will contact the bookseller and request the listing be removed from the AbeBooks Web sites within a specified time period.
Step 2: If the bookseller does not remove the listing within the time period, we will remove the listing.
Step 3: If the bookseller uploads the listing back onto the AbeBooks Web sites after being contacted by us to remove the listing, we will remove the bookseller from AbeBooks.

If you are the original author, publisher or distributor of the Promotional Item, and if you wish to contact us regarding an infringement of the Promotional Item policy, please contact us here, or mail us a note to the following address:

AbeBooks Inc.
Suite 500 - 655 Tyee Road
Victoria, BC V9A 6X5
Canada

To find out if a Promotional Item is available for sale, please contact the original author, publisher or distributor of the Promotional Item