HeinOnline “F T W/”
HeinOnline takes user feedback very seriously. Whenever possible, we implement suggestions we receive. Recently, HeinOnline user @legalkm tweeted about proximity searching:
TFW you try to use w/ instead of ~ to run a proximity search in Hein 😞 https://t.co/jSgtnd5SOP
— Eric Berg (@lawliberg) October 11, 2018
We immediately looked into whether we could add “w/#” search syntax for proximity searching to HeinOnline’s capabilities, because we don’t like to see sad faces in the same tweet as a reference to HeinOnline. Great news: we did it!
For example, let’s search in the Law Journal Library for the word ‘jury’ within five words of ‘discrimination’:
1. jury w/5 discrimination
2. “jury discrimination”~5
Both search queries produce the same set of search results, as depicted below.
![Screenshot of Full Text search results demonstrating proximity search using w/](https://home.heinonline.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/srch2-1024x640.jpg)
![Screenshot of Full Text search results demonstrating proximity search using tilda](https://home.heinonline.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/srch1-1024x620.jpg)
This change makes searching in HeinOnline even more user-friendly. Researchers who may be familiar with other databases’ search syntax for term proximity are now able to seamlessly change between interfaces.
We Want Your Feedback!
If you have a suggestion that may help us improve your research experience, feel free to send us feedback, or email or live chat us your idea!