St. Kateri Tekakwitha
Click the picture to learn about St. Kateri Takakwitha
Read graphic story versions of St. Kateri's life in Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact.
Volume 3, Number 3 (Story starts on page 12)
Volume 17, Number 20 (Story starts on page 23)
Getting to the Advanced Search Screen
The most efficient way to search the Catholic Portal for any topic is to use the Advanced Search interface. To do so, click on the "Advanced" link in the box above.
On the previous page, most of the pre-set searches retrieve a manageable number of citations. But in some cases, the search link will retrieve hundreds of items. How can you narrow one of these searches?
Let's say you clicked on "Catholic Church--Missions--North America." This will retrieve over 240 items. Let's also imagine you only want to see books dealing with French missions to North America.
Go to the Advanced Search screen. In the first search box type the subject heading that brought up the large result, and then change the menu following that box to "Subject." In the second box type a keyword that names the person, place, thing, or concept you want to add to the search. Keep the menu following the second search box set on "All Fields." Then run you search.
(Notice in the second search box the words "France" and " French" are joined together with the word "OR." This tells the Portal search engine to find either of those words in all records cataloged under the subject "Catholic Church--Missions--North America." This little word, the Boolean operator "OR" is a useful way to join synonyms together in a search.)
Find Books Written by an Individual or Group
Some of the pre-set searches on the previous page use the names of important individuals. If you click them, you will be taken to all the materials about those people, not the things that they wrote. If you want to find things written by any of those persons (or by any person), you would want to go to the search box, type in the person's name, and then change the menu following the search box to "Author." Then click the "Find" button.
What works here for an individual author will also work for items written by a group (known as a "corporate author"). Let's say we want to find documents produced by the Franciscans on their mission work. In this case, type the name of the group ("Franciscans") in the first search box, and change the menu following the box to "Author." In the second box, type the word "missions" and leave the menu following the second box set at "All Fields."
Find Books About an Individual
On the previous screen there are a number of pre-set searches that will find materials about well-known people involved in Catholic missions in North America. But let's say you want to see if there are any materials in the Portal about someone whose name is not included in the pre-set searches. How would you do this?
Go to the search box. Type the person's name in the first box, then change the menu following the search box to "Subject." Run your search.
If this does not retrieve any items, change the menu following the search box to "All Fields" and try again.
Find Materials on Mission Work by Religious Orders in Specific Locales
Let's say you want to find materials on missionary work by religious orders for which there are no pre-set searches on the previous page, or you want to find things about mission work by orders listed but in different locales.
Go to the Advanced search box. Type the name of the order in the first box, and change the menu following it to "Subject." Type the name of the locale (continent, region, territory, state, reservation, specific mission, city or town) in the second box and change the menu following it to "Subject" as well.
If this does not retrieve any items, change the menus to "All Fields" and try again.
If you want to find materials on a specific mission location, type the name of the school, hospital, organization, etc. in the first box and change the menu following the box to "Subject."
If this does not retrieve any items, change the menu to "All Fields" and try again.
If you want to find materials on mission work with a particular tribe or ethinc group, type the word "missions" in the first search box and change the menu following it to "Subject." In the second box type the name of the tribe or people group and change the menu following to "Subject" as well. Then run the search.
If this does not retrieve any items, change the menus to "All Fields" and try again.
