Use search strings with interest terms
September 29, 2025
Using interest terms (521 MARC tag) in Items provides a way to group items into custom categories and searchable groups, so you can target a specific grade or range of grades. Then, using a search string of the interest term makes the associated items easily searchable by term in Researcher! Let’s go over the steps.

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To add interest terms to a title:
Locate the title you are adding the interest term to in Items Management and go to the Terms tab.
- Unlock Items by clicking the lock icon
at the top right
- Click Add at the bottom right
- Select 521 – Target Audience Note (Interest)
- In the Target Audience Note field, enter the interest grade level. Ex. 08
- Save your changes

You can now use a search string to easily find all of the items with the same interest term. In Search use the ((interest::your term here)) search string. For example, if I am looking for all items with an interest term of 08 I would use the search string ((interest::08))

You can use your search strings to create explore buttons, help curate lists, and build slideshows! Learn all about building search strings here.
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