When you conduct a search on the main catalog page, the catalog auomatically searches for all the words that you enter across the most common fields, including author, title, and subject.
You do not need to worry about having your search words in order. A search for "Jane Austen" will give you the same results as a search for "Austen, Jane."
The catalog automatically searches for the plural forms of nouns, but it is not currently possible to truncate your search terms or use wildcards. If you want to do a Boolean search, you can use the Boolean search field on the bottom of the Advanced Search page.